Team VNLA
by The Kishin Sesshomaru-Kurai
Summary: Alongside teams RWBY and JNPR is another misfit team: VNLA. And they're just as odd as their friends. Brawls, arguments, awkward love polygons, and eccentric attitudes that make anyone question their sanity are but a slice of their team dynamic, and somehow it works! First four chapters are Trailers, not as important as the rest of the story. Really starts at Chapter 5.
1. Violet Trailer

**Ok, like I stated in my Fairy Tail story "Into Fiore", this is the first of four trailers for the main cast of my upcoming RWBY fic: "Team VNLA" (Name subject to change). There might be a bit of delay until my friend Pyros (you'd better check your email and learn about this story!) finally answers me. And thus, the leader's trailer!**

**Team VNLA (Vanilla): Violet Trailer**

The teen sighed in annoyance as he sat on the train he was helping guard for his family's employers. He tucked a strand of his chin length purple hair behind his ear. He was wearing a purple sweatshirt with a black shirt underneath it. His pants were black cloth and left his purple sneakers on display. A bandolier with multiple cartridges of various colored dust rounds on it. Leaning against the window was a large black claymore with a cross shaped guard and handle with a textured handle. He turned his gray eyes to the older man across from him. "Father, I get that we owe the Schnee family a debt, but I should be training for my entrance exam at Beacon."

The older man, with black hair and a matching suit, sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose. "Violerous, I still don't get it. You are from one of the longest lines of warriors in Atlas, can go to the school right here in our home nation, and yet you insist on traveling to that school in Vale. Why?"

"Beacon is one of the best schools in Remnant," he replied while looking back out the window. "I want to be the best warrior, by going to one of the best schools in the world. And I told you, call me Vio." That's not all of it, but it's enough to get him to shut up, thought the teen. "Besides, Weiss is going to Beacon, and isn't it the duty of a Black to watch after a Schnee?"

His father nodded with a smile. "Ah yes, I figured that was part of the reason. Of course you'd wish to get close to Ms. Schnee." The boy groaned in annoyance, knowing where his father was going with this. "After all, it would be most wonderful if our two families were to merge."

"Yes father," he sighed. "Although I doubt Weiss would care about something like that." And I'd rather run myself through with Black Bolt. She and I aren't like that.

Suddenly, the train shook with a loud bang as it kept moving. His father got up and grabbed the large halberd next to his seat. "Sounds like our company has arrived."

Vio slung Black Bolt and ran towards the exit to the car. "You guard the Dust. I'll take out anyone on the roof."

"Ageed," nodded his father. "This will make excellent practice for your exam."

The boy never responded as he ran towards the door to the next car. Sliding it open, he channeled his Aura into his legs and jumped up to the roof of the train. (Cue "Eon" by Celldweller). Landing, he looked up and saw a large group of White Fang soldiers moving down the train's roof. "Hey!" he yelled, hetting their attention. Taking his sword off the magnetized sheath, he bettered his grip with his left hand and pointed the sword in front of himself. "If you want that Dust, it'll be over my dead body!"

"Kill the human!" ordered the leader. A couple with swords ran forwards with red swords while some others pointed guns at him.

"You're funeral," he chuckled as he dashed forwards with his claymore to his right. With a powerful swing, he swept two of the soldier's legs out from under them and sent them tumbling off the roof. Continuing the swing, he blocked the third swordsman's swing. He kicked him in the stomach with his left foot and hooked his ankle under the man's legs. With a yank, he knocked the man down and spin-kicked him off the train.

The fourth swordsman ran at him while he was distracted and the other men opened fire on him. Pulling his sword back to his side, he let his Aura block the shots as he ran towards the swordsman. Bashing the guy's head with the flat of his sword and sending him flying, he jumped over the men that had opened fire on him.

With a tug on his sword's handle, it bent into a gun grip as his blade began folding itself into a gun barrel and a shotgun pump. The back handle from his guard folded back and extended into a shoulder rest. When the last part clicked into place, he pointed the gun downwards as a trigger popped out of the handle. With a smirk, he fired a red dust round into the group. The resulting blast created a blast of fire that sent the five White Fang grunts diving. Landing in the wake of his fire blast, he pumped in another round before aiming at the two grunts close to each other. Firing the round, he sent both flying off the train with trails of fire. As he turned, he pressed a switch on his shotgun and made the ammo cartridge slide down. The cartridge was plus shaped and rotating, with the three sides outside the rifle showed ice blue, yellow, and green rounds.

Turning it backwards, the green rounds were lined up to slide into the gun and replaced a red cartridge with two empty slots. Sliding the rounds back in, he turned to the remaining three and started firing blasts of air at the gunners. After knocking all three down (two were launched into trees and the other on his back) he turned to go after the leader. He didn't need to though, since as he started running, the leader was taken out by a blast from his father's lightning halberd. (End song)

"Honestly, couldn't you have handled all of them?" sighed his father in disappointment.

"I would have gotten him!" snapped the teen. As the downed soldier behind him started getting up, he pointed his shotgun over his shoulder and fired an air round into his chest, thus sending him flying off the roof. And this is why I want to go to Beacon with Weiss. To get away from all this.

**So? Did any of you enjoy the trailer? That was the Trailer for team VNLA's leader, Vio. Until next I update! And seriously Pyros, check your Skype!**


	2. Gold Trailer

**Team VNLA: Gold Trailer**

The teen walked along through the dark streets. He looked around disdainfully at the seedy section of Vale he was walking around in. His grey eyes scanned the shady individuals who became far more active during the night. Of course, one person in particular was this one teen's target. Running a hand through short blonde hair, he headed towards the only alley with an armed guard in front of it. He tried to walk past, but the guard grabbed a hold of his black cloak.

"Hey kid, I dunno what you're doing here, but I can't let you pass without a good enough reason," he said in his gruff voice. He pulled aside his black jacket to show the pistol holstered against his chest. "Now get lost."

The boy glared at him before elbowing the taller man in the stomach. A loud cracking was heard as the man fell to the ground in agony and passed out. "Shouldn't have done that," he said in a condescending tone. Walking down the alley, he found a small unguarded steel door. Pulling his hood up, he opened the door and walked in.

A greasy looking man with uncombed black hair was sitting in a broken swivel chair. The wall was decorated with a variety of weapons, armor, and even Dust crystals. There were shelves with all sorts of other expensive and worn objects in front of each wall. "Welcome friend, how can I help you?"

The boy looked up at the wall behind the man and at a massive cleaver-type sword with a gold-bronze paint job. It looked far too large to be wielded by a normal person, Faunus or otherwise. "That's a nice weapon," he said in a gruffer voice.

"Ah yes," replied the shopkeeper. "A truly fine piece. Crafted during the Faunus War. An absolute treasure made by the leader of the Human Guerilla forces." He gave a sneaky grin. "Interested in purchasing it?"

"Indeed," replied the teen. "I'm rather taken with it."

"Well in that case-"

"Mostly since it was mine!" His voice normal again, he pulled back his head. The man's eyes widened at the sight of the blonde. "So if you would kindly return my weapon to me, I'll leave you with at least 4 bones intact."

-Outside-

The group of armed bouncers approached the iron door. After finding one of their own, they figured someone was threatening their employer. As they got near it, there was a loud blast that was dulled by the door. One of them cautiously reached for the door handle, only for the door to explode in a massive blast.

Stepping out of the ruined wall was the blonde teen. In his hands was a massive 5 foot cannon that had to be pointed his right hand, and supported by his left forearm. The cloak had gotten blasted off, revealing a pair of black jeans, yellow sneakers, and a golden vest over a white shirt. "Alright boys, who's next?"

One of them pulled out his pistol and went to aim at him, but was blasted through the wall by a red Dust round. The teen switched his cannon back into the massive cleaver and slammed the blunt side of the blade into the remaining men and sent them flying. Resting the blade over his shoulders, he casually walked out of the alley. More armed guards were waiting for him with all sorts of guns trained on him.

"Alright," he said calmly. He lowered the blade into both hands with a smirk. "Let's play." Running forward a bit, he slammed the blade into the ground, creating a tremor that shook a couple of the gunners. He then swung in an upwards spin and launched a couple of the goons into nearby buildings. He quickly switched to his cannon and pulled the lever on it to load in another shell. He then pointed it at a cluster of three cowering gunmen. "Bang." A large brownish blast slammed into one of them and burst out into a series of earthen shards that spread out from where it impacted with him. The three were quickly dispatched by the shrapnel.

He then screamed as he felt a series of rounds tear into his back. Turning, he blocked the incoming rounds with his large blade. "You guys are pissing me off," he growled. Holding the sword from the side of his body, he threw it at them and chuckled when it spun into all three and knocked them all out before embedding itself in the side of a building. Hearing more coming, he quickly grabbed his sword and started running from the incoming reinforcements. After running for a couple blocks, he finally took breather. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his Scroll and raised an eyebrow at the missed call from his mother.

Dialing in her number, he held it up to her ear. "Hey mom, it's me. Just letting you know I'm on my way home."

"_Well it's about time,_" she replied in an annoyed tone. _"Don't forget that you're leaving for Beacon Academy in a couple weeks."_

"That's next month, mom," he muttered. "And don't act like I don't know that."

**Sorry if this isn't the best. But I was getting sleepy when I wrote this. And I was bickering with two of my friends. There might be a bit of a delay before the next trailer since my buddy Remvis (great author, go check his page out) is designing the guy for the Green Trailer. Buh bye!**


	3. Green Trailer

**So this is a double update since I had the fourth trailer written by the time I finished this one (I got bored while waiting for Pyros to get back to me and couldn't get started on this one yet)**

**Team VNLA: Green Trailer (3 months before episode 1)**

A lone deer walked through the forest. Coming to a stop, it leaned down to sniff at a pile of berries. Getting closer to them, it leaned down and began eating. As it ate some of the fruit, it felt a solid mass slam into it and a blade sink into its side. A teen stood over the thrashing animal with a sad expression. "Forgive me, brother deer," he lamented as he sheathed his katana.

Kneeling down beside the deer, he pulled out some rope. Feeling along the deer's body, he managed to get a grip on all four of its legs. After another couple minutes of fumbling with tying the rope, he put the bound legs around his neck and stood up. "Now let's get you to the butcher. The others at the orphanage are gonna enjoy having venison tonight." As he walked on through the woods, he would occasionally whistle and adjust his path to avoid a tree.

As he passed between a couple of trees, he heard a woman scream. Turning towards the source, he started darting between trees as he headed towards the scream.

Meanwhile, a woman was cowering against a tree. The trailer truck that had been attacked off the road by the Grimm was crashed into a nearby tree and smoking. A large and very armored Beowolf was fighting against the Hunter accompanying her (a round man with grey hair and a mustache, and wielding a rather unsightly axe and gun combination) but another two and an Ursa Major were approaching her. "Help!" she screamed.

"Hang on my dear!" called the Hunter. "I'll be through with this blasted Beowolf soon enough!"

**(Begin playing "Legend of Steel" by Luca Turilli)**

The large Ursa raised its paw up to take a swipe at her, but roared as a deer carcass slammed into it. A moment later, a green haired teen slashed down at it from above as it recoiled backwards. His forest green hair was cut shaggily and covered one side of his face. A black jacket with green highlights fluttered and revealed a light green shirt underneath. He was holding a large dark green katana in both hands with the sheath belted across a second belt on his tan pants. His green shoes dug into the ground as he held the katana in a stance that radiated his familiarity with the blade. What shocked her the most was the pair of black bat ears poking out of his longish hair.

His right ear twitched as he turned his head to her and revealed he was wearing a pair of solid black glasses. "You alright ma'am?" he asked in concern.

"Um… yes," she replied as she got over her shock of being saved by a Faunus. "Thank you."

"Stay put and don't panic about anything," he said in a reassuring tone. "You'll only agitate the Grimm even more. I'll handle them." Pulling back the sword, he rushed at the Ursa. With fluid swings, he slashed at the Ursa and made it pull away from him and roar. "You'd better not have ruined that deer," he said in a menacing tone. "Because that's going to be our dinner tonight."

With a roar, the massive Ursa brought its paws down towards his head. The Faunus boy's ears twitched at the sound as he swung up with his katana in a counter-clockwise arc, severing the Grimm's paws from its arms. As it fell backwards, he jumped up and rammed his katana through the bottom of its jaw and out the other side of its head. Spinning around with the blade as a pivot point, he cleaved the bear Grimm's head in two. Landing, he shook the black blood off his katana as the two Beowolves circled him with their teeth bared. Growling, they lunged at him from both sides.

He smirked as both his ears twitched. Jumping up into the air, he let the Beowolves collide with each other as he landed in front of them. "Too slow," he chuckled. Turning in a circle, he sliced off the heads of the two Grimm as they separated to attack him.

As the corpses dissolved, he shook off the 'blood' off his katana. A loud gunshot sounded, making him flinch as his ears kind of flattened from the volume. "Ow," he muttered. "That hurts."

The older Hunter laughed loudly. "And so, another Grimm added to my hunting endeavors," he said in a very happy voice. He walked up to the Faunus boy and held out a hand. "Young Faunus, I must thank you for your assistance!"

The boy rubbed one of his ears from the man's volume, but nodded, not responding to the man's hand. "Of course, sir," he replied.

The older man kept waiting with his hand extended, waiting for him to return the handshake. "My boy, not to encourage the stereotypes of all Faunus being uncivilized brutes, but aren't you going to return my handshake?"

The teen flinched before noticing his hand. Reaching for it with uncertainty, he shook the taller man's hand. "Sorry, the ringing in my ears was messing with my 'sight'," he replied after withdrawing his hand.

"Why would your ears determine your sight?" asked the Hunter.

The boy chuckled before removing his black glasses. Instead of an actual eye color, his eyes were a milky white. "I've been blind my whole life," he replied. "My ears pick up sound and help me use echolocation to 'see' the world around me. I've also helped tune my other senses to help see the world without my eyes."

"So then you killed those three Grimm, with just your ears?" he asked in amazement. "That's remarkable."

"I've gotten used to it," the boy replied simply.

"Well, surely you've earned that skill in a combat school," the large man stated matter-of-factly.

"Nope. I learned Kendo from a dojo and taught myself how to fight. I don't even go to combat school." He cocked his head at the man's gasp. "Is something wrong?"

"Young man, how would you like to become an actual Hunter?" he asked after a pause. "With that level of skill, and what I witnessed, you have essentially passed the entrance exam to Beacon Academy!"

"I have?" he asked in surprise. "Are you saying I can go to Beacon and become a Hunter?"

The taller man clapped him on the shoulder. "My good boy, I'm saying you're _going_ to Beacon!" With his hand on the blind teen's shoulder, he started guiding him to the woman's truck as she backed up to the road once more. He only stopped to grab the deer the Faunus had chucked at the Ursa. "Now then, what's your name, my boy?"

The Faunus 'looked' at him strangely before smiling. "I'm Leaf. Leaf Sonara."

"Well, Leaf, let's get you enrolled at Beacon Academy!"

**And there's the third trailer. Leaf Sonara is a creation of my friend Remvis (He's a great writer. I'd recommend looking him up). **


	4. White Trailer

**And this is part two of the double update. The White Trailer and the 'A' in VNLA. Let's go!**

**Team VNLA: White Trailer**

The lanky girl sighed as she walked along the empty docks. She had done this for quite a while, and helped her relax before bed, especially since she was going to Beacon in a couple days. _Gotta enjoy this all one more time, _she thought. Her long white hair was pulled into two high ponytails. Her hair was filled with curls and was held out of her face by a pair of brown goggles. Her top was a light blue tank top with a pinkish-white jacket over it with an icy hammer motif on the upper right sleeve. Her pale blue shorts were well worn. A large silver and white hammer was strapped to her back.

When she turned a corner at a large storage crate with a snow-flake design, her electric blue eyes widened in shock. A team of White Fang members were loading Schnee crates onto an airship.

"Let's hurry up!" yelled the leader. "The boss wants us to get this Dust back to headquarters A.S.A.P.!"

_Oh dammit, of all the times for the White Fang to be on these docks. _She started backing away, but felt the barrel of a gun against the small of her back.

"Not so fast, little missy," came a gruff voice. "Start walking or I shoot."

Cursing in her head, she sighed angrily. "Buddy, you just signed your death certificate."

The leader of the group was barking orders at some of their newest recruits. _Honestly, we need to really work on our quality of labor,_ he thought to himself. He then heard a loud crash and a scream of pain as one of his gun wielding lackeys came flying in through the air. Looking to where he flew in from, he saw what looked like the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company holding a massive hammer and dressed like a commoner. "Well, well, who would have thought little Weiss Schnee would come to stop us from robbing her daddy?" he taunted. "You'll fetch quite the pretty penny."

She growled at him angrily. "Look asshole, I am NOT Weiss Schnee." She spun her hammer in her hands and held the head to her right. "The name's Album White, and I'm gonna kick your ass!" Jumping into the air, she swung downwards with the hammer like it was nothing. He jumped out of the way as she created a crater in the ground.

He looked at all of his men who were just standing there watching him. "Well, get her!" he ordered. The men pulled out there guns and several pulled out their red swords. The sword wielders charged him as the gunners started firing at her.

Ducking under most of the firing, she smirked as some of them wound up shooting each other. Jumping back up, she swung her hammer like a bat and took out two of the charging swordsmen as they swung at her. Using the face of a man behind her as a baseboard, she launched herself at another four. With a yell, her swing slammed them into each other and sent them sprawling all over the ground. The gunners regrouped in a large group and opened fire.

The group's leader stepped out of the airship holding a large grenade launcher with a dark chuckle. "Say good night, girlie." Laughing, he started firing grenades at her with his men's bullets.

"Hell no," she muttered. The handle of her hammer started folding itself up as the head of the hammer started opening up. The front face spiraled open to reveal eight barrels in a circular shape. The handle of her hammer folded up into a curved handle for her to hold on to with a circular handle closer to the front. Gripping it, she pulled the trigger that dialed out of the handle. Laughing crazily, the gun's barrels began rotating. "Die bitches!" she screamed as the bullets began flying from the minigun's barrels.

The silvery rounds began blasting on impact with the group of armed terrorists. Her bullets shredded the grenades and made them explode closer and closer until they detonated as he fired them. The rapidly firing gun knocked the launcher out of his hands and shredded his armor in several places until he fell backwards in pain. As she directed the stream of bullets towards the ship. Unfortunately, she ran out of bullets after punching a couple dozen holes in the side of the ship.

"Aw dammit," she grumbled. "I ran out of ammo." As she converted the minigun back into a hammer, she heard police sirens approaching. "Oh shit, time to run!" Shouldering the hammer she took off at a full sprint, and started darting through the storage crates as she ran for the alleys to escape any suspicion from the police.

**There you go, the fourth trailer. Next chapter to be uploaded will be the first actual chapter, when they're en route to Beacon. Until then!**


	5. Shining Beacon

**Violerous (Vio) Black- Me**

**Nudar Athenos- Hunter-Pyros**

**Leaf Sonara- Remvis**

**Album White- anamisL1130**

**Shining Beacon!**

Vio leaned against the wall of the airship they were traveling in to Beacon. Black Bolt had been taken out of its sheath and was resting against the wall next to him. Beside him, Weiss was standing with her pristine posture and icily observing their future classmates. They didn't recognize anyone, but that might have something to do with the fact that there were no other students from White Castle attending Beacon; most stayed in Atlas rather than go to another kingdom.

He looked over at his oldest and only real friend with a raised eyebrow. "Calm down, Princess," he said calmly. "Nobody here even knows you. You don't have to live up to 'Ice Queen' yet."

She sighed as she looked at him from the side. "I know, Vio," she replied. She looked back at the rest of the people on the airship with a forlorn look. "But I hate not knowing anyone here, even if we didn't like anybody back at White Castle. I only hope we can stay a team, even here." She rested a hand on Myrtenaster. "I mean, who else would I work with?" she asked while looking down at the floor.

"Well there's no way of knowing for sure if we'll be able to choose partners like at our last school," he replied with a comforting hand to the shoulder. "But let's hope we get paired up again at this school." She nodded and fidgeted with the edge of her combat skirt (she tried making a tougher name for her dress and referred to her combat outfit as such). He resumed looking at the other students. One boy had an odd vest outfit and a yellow-scheme and an impossible to wield, massive sword resting over his shoulder, and a red and black girl talking nervously to an older blonde girl. At the same time, a blonde boy ran past to the nearest garbage can and started vomiting. _Ew. _As he continued looking around, his eyes widened when he saw a person that shocked him.

"Uh, Weiss?" She looked at him with an inquisitive stare. He pointed over at the far corner of the airship's passenger area. "I think I just found your long lost twin."

She followed his finger and went equally wide-eyed at what she saw. In the corner was a girl who looked almost identical to Weiss. The key difference was that this girl had two ponytails, a light blue t-shirt, a pair of faded jean shorts, and no shoes… that and the massive hammer over her shoulder. "My word, it's terrifying how similar she and I look."

"I wonder how that's possible…" he muttered. "I guess the stories about everyone having a doppelganger in the world aren't complete garbage."

-Album-

The Schnee-look-alike was standing in the back of the room typing away on her Scroll. She was messaging one of her friends from her neighborhood when she felt someone staring at her. Looking up, she saw the actual Weiss Schnee and a purple haired boy staring at her. She raised a hand and awkwardly waved as the two had a quiet discussion amongst themselves. She went back to her Scroll as she resumed messaging her friends. She heard a quiet cough from in front of her, and when she looked up, there was a brawny looking guy in armor with a mace hanging from his waist. His reddish-brown hair was slicked back.

"Hey baby, you're that Weiss girl, right?" he asked. He practically radiated "total douchebag" and set Album on edge as soon as he put his arm on the wall next to her head.

"Sorry, but I'm not her," she replied with a creeped out smile. "My name's Album White, not Weiss Schnee."

"Oh really?" He leaned in even closer and made her want to gag on his excessive use of body spray. "Well then I don't have to worry about being hounded by the media," he said confidently. She shivered as he leaned against the wall and put an arm over her shoulder. "The name's Cardin. Cardin Winchester. But you can call me Cardin."

She pushed his arm off her shoulder and moved over from him. "Go away." She said flatly. "Not interested."

He got even closer with a slimy smile. "Aw c'mon babe, what's wrong? You a dyke or something?"

With a twitching eyebrow, she pulled her fist up before slamming it into his jewels. The large boy let out a pained squeak as he held his goods in agony. "Now piss off!" she growled. Nodding in agony, he waddled away from her in pain. She rolled her eyes at him and went back to her Scroll, but was interrupted when she heard another cough. Gritting her teeth, she looked up and saw a busty blonde with similar tastes as her and a younger-looking girl with a red and black goth thing going for her.

"Hey!" the blonde said warmly. "Way to deal with that sleazeball!" She held out her hand. "I'm Yang Xiao-Long. And this is my little sister Ruby," she said while pointing her thumb at the smaller girl.

"Hello," she waved awkwardly.

"Hi," she said plainly. "My name is Album White. Now what do you want?"

The blonde smiled cheekily. "I just wanted to say how awesome you were hitting that guy like that. You really did a number on him!"

"I'll say," came another voice. The blonde boy with the dark grey eyes, goldish vest and the gigantic-ass sword had come to join the group.

Album pocketed her Scroll and threw her hands up in exasperation. "Sure people, just keep coming on over here!" she said sarcastically. "It's not like I was doing anything!"

"Well, someone's an interesting person," chuckled the boy. He turned to Yang and extended a hand to her. "I already heard the intros. And my name is Nudar Athenos **(A/N: His name is Greek for gold and the last name is because Pyros wanted his guy to look like a child of Athena since he's rereading Percy Jackson or something)** He and Album noticed how Ruby was staring at their weapons with a dazed expression. "Um, everything alright, Red?" he asked nervously.

"Your weapons…" she muttered. "They look so cool…"

"Ok then…" Their conversation was interrupted when the news story about Roman Torchwick and the White Fang was switched off and a stately looking blonde woman dressed like a witch appeared in its place.

"_Hello and welcome to Beacon,"_ said the hologram.

"Who's that?" asked Yang.

"_I, am Glynda Goodwitch."_

"Oh."

"_You are among the privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy,"_ said the projection with its arms crossed. _"Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace. And as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it."_ The projection gave the illusion of looking around at the prospective students. _"You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now, it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training required to protect our world."_ With that, the projection faded.

Ruby ran over to the large window and looked out of it in awe. "Look!" she told her sister. "You can see signal from up here!" The white haired girl took their moment of distraction as a chance to walk off as the blonde boy with the black sweatshirt and armor threw up on his shoes from the view.

-Blake-

The black-garbed Faunus in disguise walked around the campus. She had been on an earlier flight up the school, and had a bit of time to find places that looked like promising reading spots. As she neared the docks again, she saw another Faunus standing near the cliff. A green haired boy stood staring off the cliff towards Vale. His face had an expression of complete relaxation and peace as his black-glass covered eyes looked out into the distance. His bat ears twitched every now and then, but otherwise, he didn't really move. For some reason, he seemed awfully familiar to her.

"Excuse me," she asked cautiously. "Are you alright?"

His ears twitched again, and he turned in her direction. "Yeah, sorry. My ears are sensitive to sound, and this cliff is amazing." He turned back to it with a smile. "There's no sound reflecting off of it, and I can barely hear the sounds from Vale as a whisper. Sure there's the airships, but it's just so…" He spread his arms out wide. "Open."

"That's one way to look at it," she replied awkwardly. _Okay, I definitely know him from somewhere… Wait, is he?_ She walked up next to him and looked at him. "Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked cautiously.

"I'll admit, you're voice does sound awfully familiar," he replied while turning to her. "As does your scent. What's your name?"

She bit her lip at how risky this was. _If this guy is really White Fang, I could be in serious trouble. But if he was, he wouldn't be so relaxed around humans._ "Blake Belladonna," she replied nervously.

He had an elated look on his face. "Oh, Blake! No wonder you sound familiar. My parents would talk with yours a lot and left us to play together when we were younger!" She tilted her head at him. Sensing her unspoken question, he tilted his own head. "Remember? Leaf Sonara?"

Her eyes widened. "Leaf?!" She looked him up and down. "It is you! But, I thought they had you killed five years ago when our leader changed because your parents had... defected..."

He shook his head. "They went into hiding, but left me in an orphanage in Vale. I've spent the past sevenyears there. So how about you? How is it being a part of the new White Fang?"

She looked down, grateful nobody else was around. "I quit two years ago. I couldn't stand what it's become. I haven't spoken to anyone from the White Fang since then."

"Not even Adam?" asked the green haired boy. "I remember you two used to be really close." She remained silent, so he turned away. "Sorry for dragging up the past," he apologized. "I'm going to go. Hear you later, Blake." The girl said nothing as the blind boy walked by her. Taking a deep breath, she started walking away and continued on her way. _That's all in the past,_ she thought. _No use thinking about it now._

-Vio-

The purple teenager was walking towards the main school building with his white-haired friend, when the blonde haired girl from the airship ran by them with a large group. A moment later, they heard a crash from the luggage cart being pushed behind them. When they turned and looked, the red and black haired girl had fallen over on his and Weiss' bags, knocking them all over the place. He sighed, knowing what was coming as the shorter girl stomped over to the fallen girl.

"What are you doing?!" she demanded as the girl sat up. The girl looked at her in fright and tried to apologize to the white haired heiress. "You're sorry?!" she said incredulously in response. "Do you have any idea of the damage you could have caused?"

She let out an "uh" as she tried picking up one of the heiress' bags. "Give me that!" she snapped. Opening it up, she checked to make sure the Dust inside it was intact. "This is Dust: mined and purified from the Schnee quarries."

_Here she goes again,_ thought Vio as he walked to his friend, recalling a similar incident when someone had knocked over one of her bags at White Castle. Having tried to stop that, he knew better than to interfere when Weiss was chewing someone out.

"What are you, brain dead?" continued the girl. "Dust! Fire, water, lightning… energy!" As she ranted, she shook the bottle of red Dust around, creating a small cloud of the Dust. The younger looking girl was dazed and started looking like she was about to sneeze. "Are you even listening to me? Is _any_ of this sinking in? What do you have to say for yourself?!"

The red and black haired girl couldn't handle it anymore, and sneezed, causing the Dust cloud to explode in a plume of fire with a bit of ice and lightning. Vio went wide eyed as the Dust bottle flew away and went to his oldest friend. "Weiss, you alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she huffed while covered in soot. She glared at the girl in front of them. "You however… Unbelievable!" she cried while stomping her foot, clearing away the grey soot. "This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about!"

"I'm really, REALLY sorry," the girl said while pushing her index fingers together.

"You complete dolt!" snapped Weiss.

"Okay, that's enough," interjected Vio. He quickly got between the two girls with his arms raised. "Let's just cool off. Princess, I'm sure she didn't mean it."

"PRINCESS?!" she snapped at him. He winced, remembering that he wasn't supposed to call her that nickname in public.

"It's heiress, actually," came a new voice. Another girl, this one with black hair and black and white clothes, walked over holding the bottle of Dust. Vio, despite not meaning to, found himself staring at her olive complexion and yellowish eyes. "Weiss Schnee: heiress to the Schnee Dust Company," she said while holding up the bottle. "One of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world."

"Finally!" boasted Weiss. "A little recognition!" Vio only shook his head. _Why she continues to play the spoiled princess is beyond me._

"The same company," continued the newcomer, "infamous for its controversial labor practices, and questionable business partners."

"Wha- How dare you?!" The younger girl giggled at their exchange as the boy rolled his eyes. "The nerve of-" With an indignant scoff, she grabbed back her bottle and stormed off, making sure to grab the hood of Vio's sweatshirt and drag him off with her. He waved to the two girls as the suited men attending to the Schnee girl's bags began picking them up.

-Ruby-

The young girl raised her hand as the two walked away. "I promise I'll make this up to you!" she called. When the girl didn't acknowledge her, she sighed sadly. "Guess I'm not the only one having a rough first day," she said sadly. She turned to the black haired girl that helped her out. "So! What's your-" she stopped when she saw the girl walking away from her, back the way she had come. Feeling defeated, she fell to her knees and flopped on her back. "Welcome to Beacon." Closing her eyes, a couple of shadows blocked the light as they leaned over her.

Opening her eyes, she saw the two blonde boys that had gotten her attention; the one who had been throwing up and the one with the impossibly huge sword (Nudar, she thought). "You alright, Ruby?" asked Nudar.

The other boy held out a hand. "I'm Juane."

She smiled shyly and took his hand as he helped her up. "Ruby." After she stood up, she looked at him. "Aren't you the guy that threw up on the ship?" He whined at her as the trio started walking around.

"All I'm saying," he said as he finished his rant, "is that motion sickness is a much more serious problem than people let on."

"Look, I'm sorry," she apologized with a wave of the hand. "'Vomit Boy' is the first thing that came to mind."

"Oh yeah?" he retorted. "Well what if I called you… Crater Face?"

"Hey, that explosion was an accident!" she snapped.

"Well the name's Jaune Arc," said the slightly scrawny boy. "Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue… ladies love it."

Nudar snorted in amusement. "Do they?"

"They will," he retorted. "Well, I think they will… My mom always says… eh never mind," he said in a downtrodden tone.

The only girl laughed awkwardly. "Well, I got this thing." Taking Crescent Rose off her back, she let it unfold and the tip of the blade slam into the ground.

"Cool," said Nudar.

"Woah!" exclaimed Jaune as he recoiled a bit. "Is that a scythe?" he asked while pointing at it fearfully.

"It's also a customizable, high impact sniper rifle," she added as she held it up and the scope popped out.

"A what?"

She chambered a round. "It's also a gun."

"Oh."

"That's pretty cool," Nudar said with a nod. He hefted the sword off his shoulder with one hand and slammed the point into the ground, making them both tremble from the force it created. It was then Ruby noticed how thick the sword was; it was thicker than two of her arms together! "My sword is fairly simple, except that it does this." Pulling on the handle as he spun it upwards, the blade began folding as it steadily shifted into a five-foot cannon. He was quick to put his left hand under the barrel to hold it steady and keep it from hitting the ground again. "It holds up to eight rounds, and is next to impossible to reload in the field."

Ruby felt her eyes bug out as Jaune freaked out even more. "That's so amazing!" she gushed, not thinking of how embarrassing her weapon obsession must make her look. "For a gun like this to be a sword like this," she was looking at the gun from all sides. "It's so cool."

"How do you fight with something like that?!" panicked Jaune.

"Very dangerously," was the reply. "I mostly use its sword form though." He looked at the other blonde. "So what do you have?" he asked as his cannon became a sword again.

"Oh, uh… I got this sword," he said as he unsheathed the plain looking weapon.

"Ooh," Ruby said in awe.

"Yeah, and I've got a shield too," continued as the sheath slid onto his arm and extended into a shield with a gold crescent moon on it.

"So, what do they do?" asked Nudar as Ruby touched the shield.

Jaune gave out a cry as the shield started retracting into a sheath and bounced around as he tried grabbing it. He was finally able to grab it after it fell on the ground. "The shield gets smaller," he said awkwardly after the little moment of clumsiness. "So, if I ever get tired of carrying it, I can just… put it away," he finished as he put it back on his belt.

"But, wouldn't it weigh the same?" asked Ruby.

"Yeah, it does," groaned the blonde.

Ruby laughed nervously. "Well, I'm kind of a dork when it comes to weapons. I did go a _little_ overboard designing it."

"You _made_ that?" Jaune asked incredulously.

"Of course!" she replied happily. "All students at Signal forge their own weapons." Jaune looked at his sword. "Didn't you make yours?"

"It's a hand-me-down," he answered while looking at the blade. "My great-great-grandfather used it to fight in the war."

Nudar was silent, mostly because of the topic of family. "Sounds more like a family heirloom to me," chuckled Ruby. "Well I like it! Not many people have an appreciation for the classics these days."

"Yeah," replied Jaune. "The classics…"

-Vio and Weiss-

The teen sighed as Weiss continued chewing him out in the large hall they were standing in. There was a large crowd in there as they waited for the introductory speech from the headmaster. "Look Weiss, I'm sorry, alright?" he groaned. "I just didn't want you making enemies on our first day like you did at Combat School." He shook his head. As he once again remembered their first day and the disaster that unfolded as a result. Weiss turned her head up at him in annoyance. Then she noticed the red and black haired girl near them talking with the blonde girl. Grabbing him again, she started pulling Vio with her. "You know, people will start thinking we're dating again," he told her in a cautious tone.

"-I literally exploded a hole in front of the school!" the young girl was telling her friend. "And there was fire, maybe a little ice."

"Are you being sarcastic?" teased the older girl.

"I wish!" she said sadly. "I tripped over some crabby girl's luggage, and then she yelled at me! And then I sneezed, and then I exploded. And then she was about to start yelling at me again-"

"You!" yelled Weiss.

She jumped into the blonde girl's arms. "Oh God, it's happening again!" she cried as she hung onto to the taller girl.

"_You're_ lucky we weren't blown off the side of the cliff!" yelled the whitette.

"Oh my god, you really exploded," muttered blondie as she looked at her friend.

"Yup, she did," said Vio.

The blonde girl smiled whe she noticed him as she practically dropped her friend.

Recovering from almost being dropped, Red looked at Weiss. "It was an accident!" Weiss replied by shoving a pamphlet in her face. "What's this?"

As Weiss dove into the "We're not accountable" speech from all corporate giants, Blondie walked up to Vio. "Well, hello there, handsome," she said charmingly as she got right up to him. "My name's Yang."

"I'm Vio," he replied in an awkward tone. He was no stranger to being flirted with (he got enough of it when Weiss' sister Winter was around), but he never really knew how to handle it. She was certainly attractive though, with her lilac eyes and figure, but he told her what he told every other flirt. "And no, I'm not interested."

"Aw, c'mon," she whined. "Let me guess, you-"

"No, I'm not dating Weiss." He replied curtly.

He looked to Weiss and saw she had finished her speech with Red looking at her in confusion. "You really want to start making things up to me?" asked the heiress.

"Oh, absolutely!"

She shoved the pamphlet forward again. "Then read this, and don't ever speak to me again."

"Sounds like you two just got off on the wrong foot," Yang said delicately, hoping to diffuse the situation. "Why don't you just, start over and try to be friends, okay?"

"Yeah!" said the caped girl. She held out her hand. "Hello Weiss. I'm Ruby. Wanna hang out? We can go shopping for school supplies."

Weiss smiled in a mocking way and put her hands up in mock enthusiasm. "Yeah! And paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys, like… tall, blonde, and scraggly over there," she said while pointing at Vomit Boy with her thumb. He looked up with a noise of interest at being mentioned.

"Really?!" asked Ruby in excitement.

Weiss stared at her coldly. "No." She turned away and got on Vio's other side to get away from the now sulking girl. Vio himself groaned in exasperation both at his friend's attitude and how Yang was getting pretty close to him.

A man coughing got their attention. They all looked towards the stage and saw a grey-haired man in a suit with a green scarf and a can at the microphone. "I'll… keep this brief," he said while fixing his glasses. "You have travelled here today in search of knowledge; to hone your craft, and acquire new skills. And when you finish, you plan to dedicate your lives to the protection of the people." Vio nodded at this while Weiss looked at the ground. "But when I look amongst you, all I see is wasted energy. The need of purpose, of direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will show you that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to _you,_ to take the first step."

He walked away as Goodwitch walked up to the microphone in his place. "You will gather in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You're dismissed." With that, the students began talking among themselves again.

"He seemed… off," muttered Vio.

"It's almost as if he wasn't there," added Yang.

The armored blonde walked over to them. "I'm a natural blonde, you know," he told Weiss.

As she pinched her forehead, Vio smirked, knowing she deserved it for being so grouchy today.

-That night-

The Black heir walked out of the men's bathroom in his pajamas and into the ballroom. He was wearing a loose, purple button up pajama top and matching silk pants. He put his folded 'battle outfit' next to his sleeping bag and grabbed his Scroll. Typing a quick message to his father about his day, he tucked it back under his shirt and looked around the room.

Yang was chatting with Ruby in her boy shorts and tank top, Ruby was writing something while in casual sleeping clothes, and a bunch of shirtless guys were showing off their muscles to the girls who were staring at them. He almost cracked up when he saw the blonde boy who tried flirting with Weiss walked by in blue feetie pajamas.

He continued the sweep, and saw the Weiss clone in an oversized grey shirt and blue sweatpants typing away on her Scroll, the apparently strong blonde reading a book on weapon mechanics, and a green-haired bat Faunus sitting next to the black haired girl from earlier in the day with his black glasses on; both boys in sweatpants and old shirts. He rolled his eyes as Yang and Ruby walked over to the black-haired girl with Yang loudly singing 'hello'. Deciding Weiss set the right example by going to sleep (their sleeping bags were next to each other), he got in and laid his head down to get some sleep for himself.

-Leaf and Blake-

He and Blake had been chatting on and off to catch up next to her candelabra. She was enjoying a book (based on the sound of turning pages), and he was taking in the sounds of the mostly quiet room, except that one girl who was loudly talking to a younger girl, and a hyper girl rambling to a very quiet boy. Hearing a shift of clothes and footsteps, the two Faunus looked up and saw two girls coming near them. "Hello~!" sang the tall blonde with a wave. "I believe you two may know each other."

Blake looked at the red girl who was rubbing her arm. "Aren't you the girl that exploded?"

"Yeah," she chuckled nervously as Leaf couldn't help but chuckle. "My name's Ruby. But you can call me Crater- actually you can just call me Ruby."

"Hello," replied Leaf with a wave.

"Okay," said Blake as she returned to her book and tried ignoring them.

The two stood there awkwardly before the blonde leaned over to Ruby. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"I don't know!" snapped the red and black girl. "Help me!"

"So…" the blonde said happily again. "What are your names?"

Blake sighed in annoyance and looked up at them. "Blake," she said simply.

"And I'm Leaf Sonara," the boy added happily as he waved with one hand to the girls.

"Well Blake, Leaf, I'm Yang, Ruby's older sister!" She looked at Blake with a smile. "I like your bow."

"Thanks," replied the once again reading girl.

"It goes great with your… pajamas!"

"Right," she said slowly as she kept on reading.

The two girls stayed there, with awkward laughs. "Nice night, don't you think?"

"Yes, it's lovely," Blake eagerly replied. "Almost as lovely as this book." She looked pointedly at the two girls who kept standing there. "That I will _continue_ to read." Still no response. "As soon as you leave."

"Yeah, this girl's a lost cause," declared Yang.

"What's it about?" asked Ruby.

"Huh?"

"Your book," she clarified. "Does it have a name?"

"Well, it's about a man with two souls," she answered. Leaf could have sworn Blake sounded amazed at Ruby's question. "Each fighting for control over his body."

"Oh yeah. That's… real lovely," Yang said sarcastically.

"I love books," Ruby told them. "Yang used to read to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes, and monsters… They're one of the reasons I want to be a Huntress."

"Why's that?" asked Leaf. "Hoping to live a happily ever after?"

"I'm hoping we all will," she replied. "As a girl, I wanted to be just like the heroes in those books. Someone who fought for what was right, and helped those who couldn't protect themselves."

"That's… really ambitious for a child," Blake replied good-naturedly.

"Unfortunately, the real world isn't as nice as those books of yours," Leaf told her with a bit of sadness in his voice.

"Well, that's we're here," Ruby said hopefully. "To make it better."

"Oh, I'm so proud of my baby sister," beamed Yang as she picked up Ruby and hugged her tightly. The two promptly began fighting one another.

"Well, Ruby, Yang, it's been ni-"

"What in the world is going on here?!" demanded Weiss as she marched over to them. Leaf immediately paid attention to her. Her footsteps carried a feel of confidence and flawless posture, and her voice was filled with a cultured authority he had never heard before. _Well, this is certainly someone to take interest in,_ he thought to himself. "Don't you realize some of us are trying to sleep?"

"Oh not you again!" she and Yang yelled at each other.

Ruby shushed them. "Guys, she's right. People are trying to sleep."

"Oh, _now_ you're on my side?" demanded the newer girl.

"I was always on your side!" snapped Ruby.

"What's your problem with my sister?!" demanded Yang. "She's only trying to be nice!"

"She's a hazard to my health!"

Leaf heard a soft breath and felt the heat from the candles vanish, indicating that Blake had blown out the candles, which caused the three other girls to go silent.

**And scene! That is the end of episodes 2 and 3 (since both are part of "Shining Beacon"). Thanks to my buddy Remvis for checking this over for me. It helps to have someone to look over the stuff I write. I actually like writing out Weiss and Vio's little friendship thing (no I'm not shipping them). I actually saw a picture a week ago about Weiss being a Tsundere that actually made me think there may be serious truth with how she acts during Season 2. See you later!**


	6. The First Step Emerald Forest

**So yeah, this chapter is combining four episodes on account of the fact that just doing stuff for episodes 4 and 5 seemed a bit short. So I'm also incorporating 6 and 7, just because I feel like it.**

**Vio Black: Yours Truly**

**Nudar Athenos: Hunter-Pyros**

**Leaf Sonara- Remvis**

**Album White- anamisL1130**

**I do not own Ruby. **

**The First Step/ The Emerald Forest**

When Vio got up the next morning, it was because Weiss was shoving him to wake up. "Honestly," she complained. "I have a feeling you'd sleep through an attack by the White Fang!"

Pushing the already dressed rich girl away, he sat up and stretched. "I doubt that, Weiss. I'm probably still a bit jet-lagged from our trip here." Getting up, he grabbed his clothes from next to his sleeping bag and checked his Scroll for messages. Unsurprisingly, he found one from his father.

_Violerous, please remember to get along with Weiss. You'll most likely wind up as her husband and you don't want to start the marriage off on a sour note. Don't get into any trouble because of it though. We wouldn't want you to ruin our efforts to rebuild the family's reputation, now do we?_

With an annoyed sigh, he deleted the offending message from his phone. As he tucked his Scroll into the pocket of his folded jeans, Weiss looked at him sadly. "You got a message from your father about me, didn't you?" she asked sympathetically. At his nod, she sighed. "I got two, one from my mother, and one from my father. Both saying I should take this as an opportunity to get even closer to you."

He stood up with his folded clothes. "Well they should mind their own business," he muttered with a scowl. "All they seem to care about is combining the Black family's military and warrior background with the Schnee monopoly on Dust."

"Tell me about it," sighed the heiress.

He started walking towards the bathroom with an annoyed sigh to change and get ready. "I'll see you in the cafeteria. I just need to get ready."

"Okay," she replied as she set about rolling up their sleeping bags. It was a quick matter of getting out of his pajamas and into his combat outfit, and he smiled once he was back in his ensemble of black shirt and pants, and purple sneakers and sweatshirt. Walking out of the stall he was in, he saw a boy in a green robe brushing his teeth as a red haired girl in a pink and grey outfit rambled on about being in Beacon.

When he walked out with his pajamas in hand, he saw Weiss had already put away his stuff. He then noticed the Faunus boy from the previous night struggling with tying the sleeping roll he had brought. The violet teen quickly changed course and went over to the bat Faunus. "Hey, you need any help?" he asked.

The green-haired boy looked at him. "No, I'm fine," he replied with a smile. "I can handle it." As he said that, the string came loose again. "Or, not."

Shaking his head, Vio put his pajamas down and started helping the Faunus tie his bag. "I don't mind helping," he told the teen. "Anyone, regardless of their species, deserves to be helped."

"Nice to see some humans care to help us Faunus," he said sincerely. "Some guy smelling like body spray came by and said I didn't belong here, and then knocked my bag away."

"Well, I wouldn't pay any attention to guys like that," replied the purple-haired teen. "But, what did this guy look like."

"Dunno," replied the teen as he grabbed his bags. "I never saw him."

"How could you have not seen the guy who kicked away your bags?" Vio was beyond confused about what this boy was saying.

"I can't see anything," answered the green-clothed Faunus. "That's why I only said what he smelled like. I never saw him to begin with."

"Oh. Well, let me put a name to my voice then," Vio said a bit awkwardly. He grabbed the blind teen's hand. "My name's Vio Black."

"Nice to meet you, Vio," he said as he gripped the hand and shook it. "I'm Leaf Sonara."

"Likewise, Leaf." Vio grabbed his night clothes and started on his way. "Well, see you around."

"Hear you later!"

-Weiss-

The heiress sipped at her tea as her oldest friend sat down beside her at the table. "That certainly took a while," she said curtly.

"Sorry, Weiss," he said sheepishly. "I was helping out that Faunus boy. You know, the one with green hair."

She scoffed a bit at what he said. "Why, exactly?"

"He needed help," shrugged Vio. "Honestly, not all Faunus are like those in the White Fang."

"But he could be," she retorted.

"Excuse me," came a kind voice. "Is this seat taken?" The two stopped their discussion and saw a girl with old-school Mistral warrior armor and vibrant red hair, a girl both teens knew by reputation.

"Certainly," replied Weiss with an air of polite formality. "I see no reason to not have Pyrrha Nikos sit with us."

"So you know who I am?" she asked with a bit of embarrassment.

"Hard not to," replied Vio as he dug into a large plate of French toast and taking a huge bite. _Why can't he have manners outside of his home?_ After swallowing the bite, he extended a hand. "Vio Black, from _the_ Black family."

"Weiss Schnee," added the girl.

"A pleasure to meet both your acquaintances," replied Pyrrha as she started her own breakfast of eggs and toast.

-Later; Album-

The white haired girl typed away at her Scroll as she shouldered her hammer. While most would think the girl was messaging a friend all the time, she was actually writing a story on her Scroll. She had gotten into a series recently, and was writing a story about two of the men in it being… involved with one another. Finishing up the paragraph she had been writing, she pocketed the device as she kicked the locker shut. _Well, better get to the initiation,_ she thought as she headed off.

Next to her, Nudar opened his locker and pulled his massive sword from the locker to get it unstuck. Shaking her head, she started walking away from her locker, only to get hit by the boy that had been throwing up a lot on the ride to Beacon.

"Oh, Weiss, fancy running into you here," he said in an attempt to be suave.

She pushed past him without a second thought. "Wrong person, Pukes McGee."

"Oh, sorry!" he called to the retreating girl. _I can't stand that! When will people realize I'm not that Schnee girl?!_

-Weiss and Vio-

The scraggly blond walked by the two while muttering to himself about counting up to a high number. As Pyrrha finished pulling on her arm guards and Vio slid Black Bolt back into its sheath, the Schnee heiress took the opportunity presented to her. "So, Pyrrha. Have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well-known individual, such as yourself."

Vio looked at the white haired girl and rolled his eyes. _Figures she's trying to get someone like Pyrrha as an ally this early._

"Mmm," Pyrrha looked away in thought. "I'm not quite sure. I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may."

"Well, I was thinking maybe the three of us could be on a team together," explained Weiss.

"Well that sounds grand!" replied the amazoness.

"Great!" Weiss turned around (forgetting Vio was there) and started making a diabolical face. _This will be perfect! The smartest girl and boy in class, combined with the strongest girl in class! Together, we will be unstoppable! I can see it now… We'll be popular, we'll be celebrities, we'll get perfect grades! Nothing can come between us now!_

"You know what else is great?" asked the armored blond boy. "Me: Jaune Arc. Nice to meet you." Vio cracked a smirk at the boy's attempts at being extremely cool and suave.

"You again?" demanded Weiss.

"Nice to meet you, Jaune," Pyrrha said warmly.

He moved her to the side, completely disregarding the champion fighter. "Yeah, yeah. So Weiss. Couldn't help but overhear your fondness of me the other day."

Weiss face-palmed as Vio laughed. "Buddy, you are a certain kind of special."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," groaned Weiss.

"Don't worry, no need to be embarrassed," he assured her. "So, I've been hearing rumors about teams," he said off-handedly. "And I was thinking you and I would make a good one." He leaned in close to the rich girl. "So what do you say?"

"Actually, I think the teams are comprised of four students each," explained Pyrrha.

"You don't say." He quickly slid over to Pyrrha. "Well, hot-stuff, play your cards right, and maybe you can join up with the winning team," he boasted while pointing to himself.

As Vio started cracking up again, Weiss got between Jaune and Pyrrha. "Listen, Jaune, is it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?" she asked while gesturing to Pyrrha.

"Not in the slightest, no," he replied with a happy tone.

"This is Pyrrha," said Weiss.

"Hello again." The red haired girl waved to him with a smile.

"She graduated at top of her class at Sanctum," explained the rich girl.

"Never heard of it," he replied with a shake of his head.

"She won the Mistral Regional Tournament _four_ years in a row, a new record" added Vio as he got in front of Jaune and struggled to keep a straight face. _This guy is such an idiot. It's funny yet maddening._

"The what?"

Weiss lost it at that moment and started waving her arms in anger. "She's on the cover of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

He made a dramatic sigh of excitement. "That's you?!" he asked while pointing at her. "They only do that for star athletes and cartoon characters!"

"And _now_ he knows who she is," muttered Weiss.

"Yeah, it was pretty cool," she said while reminiscing. "Unfortunately the cereal isn't very healthy for you."

"So after hearing all that," interrupted Weiss, "do you really think you're in a position to ask _her _to be on your team?"

"Little harsh, Princess," Vio whispered to her. He received one of her slightly boney elbows to his stomach in response.

"I guess not. Sorry." Jaune slouched and had an expression resembling that of a kicked Puppy.

Pyrrha walked up to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Actually, Jaune. I think you'd make a great leader."

He became much happier heaing praise from Pyrrha. "Oh, stop it," he gushed in embarrassment.

"Seriously, please stop it," snapped Weiss. "That kind of behavior should not be encouraged!"

"Oh lighten up, Weiss," complained Vio as he patted her on the back. "What's the harm if Jaune becomes a team leader?"

"Sounds like Pyrrha and your boyfriend are onboard with Team Jaune," he said smugly. "Spots are going fast. Now I'm not supposed to-" He never finished because Weiss slapped him and Vio smacked him upside the head.

"WE AREN'T A COUPLE!" snapped the two in anger.

Weiss looked at the red haired girl. "Pyrrha, a little help please?"

She pulled out her lance and threw it at Jaune, pinning him to the wall a distance away from them. "I'm sorry!" she called with a wave.

"_Will all first year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first year students report Beacon Cliff immediately,"_ came a woman's voice.

A blushing Weiss and a now annoyed Vio stomped past Jaune as he hung there from his hood. Pyrrha, on her way by, stopped to grab her lance. "It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise," he groaned.

-Later; general-

The group of First Years stood by the cliff with Goodwitch and Ozpin looking at them. Vio was next to Weiss with Pyrrha on her other side, and a light blue haired guy in partial armor next to him. Leaf was next to Blake towards the end of the line, and Album and Nudar were stuck next to one another in the middle.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors," explained Ozpin as he held his mug. "Today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."

"Now, I'm sure _many _of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams," added Goodwitch as she held her Scroll and looked at the group of students. "Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. "Each of you will be given teammates… today." Weiss and Vio shared a smirk as Ruby started getting nervous near the front of the line. Leaf nodded, hoping he'd be Blake's partner, if only because they were already friends.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon," explained Ozpin. "So it is in your best interest to paired with someone with whom you can work well." Another nervous squeak from Ruby. "That being said, the first person you make contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

"You had better find me quickly," Weiss whispered to Vio.

"After you partner up," he continued despite the noises coming from a couple students, "you will make your way to the North end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way." A lot of them looked at the forest as an eagle cried out in the distance. "Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die." Album grinned savagely when the headmaster said her favorite word: destroy. "You will be closely monitored during the duration of your initiation," he continued after taking a sip of his tea. "But our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path, containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return it to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, and your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?"

"Yeah, um-" Jaune raised his hand, and Weiss scoffed when she heard his voice.

"Good! Now, take a position," ordered the headmaster, ignoring Jaune. Weiss drew Myrtenaster as Vio unsheathed Black Bolt and converted it to its shotgun mode. He promptly switched the loaded ammo for his Air Dust and chambered a round. Leaf and Blake both got ready to draw their weapons, and Album and Nudar simply got into ready stances. Everyone else adopted a stance to show they were ready, except of course Jaune. Towards the end of the line, Leaf and Blake were the first and second to be launched by the catapult-like platforms. When Album and Nudar launched, both laughed crazily as they started flying.

"Um sir? I've got a… um… a question." Vio nodded to Weiss before he was launched, followed by her ten seconds later. "So, you mentioned a landing strategy. Are you gonna be, I don't know, dropping us off?"

"No," he replied seriously. "You will be falling."

"Oh, I see… So uh, did you like, hand out parachutes for us?" Nora was launched as she cheered in excitement.

"No," he said casually. "You will be using your _own_ landing strategy."

"Uh huh," he said uncertainly as Ruby and Yang were launched. He looked at the man in slight panic. "So, what exactly is a landing strategy~!" he screamed the last part as he himself got launched flailing into the air.

Ozpin watched the group of students sail through the air with amusement as he took another sip of his tea. _I love this job._

-Vio-

As the purple haired teen sailed through the air, he noticed the ten second gap being enough to put a decent gap between him and Weiss. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the girl use one of her Dust Glyphs to slow herself down. With a grin, he pointed Black Bolt behind himself and pulled the trigger, letting the increased recoil of the green Dust launch him even further. As the trees grew closer, he fired two rounds to begin his descent, and had to use another three to steer himself away from danger before hitting the ground at a roll. When he stopped moving, he checked his gun and raised an eyebrow that he hadn't emptied the clip. "Well, might as well," he said with a shrug. Pointing it upwards, he fired the last round into the air, not realizing he sent Jaune flying again in an increased panic. Switching the Dust element and swapping the empty cartridge for a yellow one off his bandolier, he slid it back in and chambered a red Dust round.

He set off towards the direction he had been walking with his gun in hand. As he did so, he put his left hand to his mouth. "Weiss! Where are you?!" he called loudly. "Weiss?"

-Album-

As the white haired girl flew through the air, she let out a shriek of excitement while doing a spin. Pulling her hammer off of her back, swung it at a tree she flew by. The blunt weapon smashed the tree where it hit it, making her scream 'destruction' at the top of her lungs.

"Look out!" She turned around and saw Nudar flying towards her with his sword as a cannon. He was moving too fast for either of them, and seemed to be having trouble reloading at high speeds.

"F*CK!" screamed Album as the two slammed into one another and they went spinning into the trees. After a very painful crash to the ground, preceded by multiple painful tree branches, she glared at him. "What the hell, you asshole?!" she yelled at him.

He got off his butt and went over to where the cannon had landed after their crash landing. "Look, I didn't try to hit you. I fired an air round from my cannon, and lost control when I fired it after it got knocked behind me by a tree as I pulled the trigger." He converted it back to a sword and looked back at her. "But, I guess we're stuck being partners."

"Yeah, I guess we are," she muttered sourly as she walked over to where her hammer had landed. Resting in on her shoulder, she gave shot him a murderous glare. "Don't think I'm not gonna make your life hell for hitting me," she muttered sourly. With that, she turned and went towards the direction they had initially been going. As she walked, she knocked down a tree with her hammer.

He raised an eyebrow at her temper, but shrugged as he followed her lead.

-Vio-

"WEISS!" he yelled loudly. He had already shifted Black Bolt back to its sword form, and was walking around with it sheathed. "WHERE ARE YOU?!" He heard sticks breaking and a bush rustle. "Is that you?" His eyes widened when he heard the guttural growl. "Guess not." He drew Black Bolt as an Ursa Major lumbered into the clearing. "Alright, one Grimm, now big deal, just… a huge ass Ursa." His slight confidence faded when a second (thankfully smaller) Ursa came in after it. "Well shit."

He charged towards them with the sword raised. With a yell, he left a slash down the Major's face, and jumped back as the smaller one got close to him. He switched his weapon back to its shotgun mode and fired a fiery round at the two, but the only one seriously affected was the smaller Ursa. As he started firing more rounds, the large Ursa charged him and smacked him into a tree with its paw. He blocked some of it with his Semblance by concentrating his Aura at the attack area, but still felt his Aura get dangerously low after he hit the tree.

"Shit," he cursed. "I didn't think you'd hit that hard." Weakly pointing his shotgun at the two, he fired the last three red Dust rounds at the smaller one, and chuckled when it finally fell. He grunted as he spun and switched the ammo type in his gun to the yellow Dust. "Guess I have to use this one," he muttered. Chambering the first round, he fired a blast of electricity that exploded against the large Ursa's face, making it stagger, and him cry out at the recoil. "Guess my Aura didn't patch up the soreness from that hit of yours," he muttered. He chambered a second round, but shuddered as the Ursa loomed over him.

As it raised its paws to crush him, it suddenly froze and let out a pained growl. The sound of a blade carving through bone as a very dark green blade shot out through the bottom of its jaw. It fell to the side and revealed the green-haired Faunus boy had run his katana through the Grimm's head. Pulling out his blade, he shook the blood off and sheathed it.

"Leaf!" exclaimed Vio as he felt his aura start helping his sore muscles. Feeling well enough to get up, he rose off the ground and smiled to Leaf despite his blindness. "Thanks man, I would've died if not for you."

"Hey Vio," replied Leaf with a cheery tone. "I thought I heard you around here." He looked around. "So, I guess this means we're partners."

"Yeah, I guess," replied Vio. Converting the gun back into a claymore, he slid it back into the magnetized sheath. "So, any idea how far we are from the ruins Ozpin told us about?"

Leaf looked up to the trees with what Vio interpreted as concentration. "This area naturally gets northern winds due to the large cliff," he replied after a moment. "So, if we continue in this direction," he pointed a bit to his right, "we should arrive at the ruins in a relatively short time."

Vio nodded to his partner. "Good to know," he replied with a bit of shock. _He must have honed every other sense to make up for no eyes._

"Come on," said Leaf as he started jogging in the direction he said was north. "I'll lead."

"Right," nodded the purple-haired teen.

-Album and Nudar-

The heavy weapon wielding duo were walking in near-total silence. Neither wanted to talk on account of Album's attitude towards him. As they kept moving through the trees, the blond boy sighed in annoyance. "Hey, Whitey. Are you sure you know where we're going?"

"Yes, now shut up!" she snapped. She gestured to a white, stony pillar. "See? That stone must be part of the ruins we're looking for. Therefore, we're approaching the relics."

"If you say so," shrugged the swordsman. He looked around as similar pillars started appearing. "You know, these stones are in an awfully straight line."

"It's _probably_ because their all part of the ruins!" snapped Album. "Now where are the relics?!" In anger, she punched one of the pillars.

Nudar walked up to one of the pillars and put a hand to it. "That's strange," he muttered. "These don't feel like stone. In fact…" Eyes widening, he channeled some of his aura into the hand and gasped as the 'stone' shook and repelled his hand. "Album, we need to get out of here. We aren't in the ruins."

She glared at him. "Well then where are we, Mr. Smartass?"

"Somewhere extremely dangerous," he said quietly as he grabbed the girl with his free hand. "Let's get out of here!"

"Let go!" she snarled as he dragged her away. He didn't however, and kept dragging her by the hand as the ground shook a little. When a roar sounded through the forest, he only ran faster.

-Ozpin and Goodwitch-

The headmaster looked at his tablet, watching Nudar and Album run from the large Grimm they woke up before it could find them. Goodwitch walked up behind him, her own tablet in hand.

"Our last pair has been formed sir," she informed him. "Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren." Tapping on her tablet Scroll, she pulled up the footage of them teaming up. "That poor boy," she said sadly. "I can't possibly imagine those two getting along. Still," she switched to another feed. "I bet he's better off than Miss Nikos." Ozpin looked over at her in interest. "I don't care what his transcripts say, that Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat." Closing down the tablet, she collapsed and pocketed the Scroll. "Well, I suppose we'll find out soon enough."

She turned and started walking away. "At their current pace, they will reach the temple within several minutes. Speaking of which," she turned back and looked at her boss. "What did you use as relics this year?" He didn't respond to her question. "Professor Ozpin?" The grey haired man made a noise of acknowledgment as he watched Ruby and Weiss interact.

-Vio and Leaf-

When the two left the forest, Leaf's directions turned out to be correct. In front of them laid the ruins Ozpin told them about. And on several pedestals around the edge of said ruins… "Chess pieces?" asked Vio in confusion. Walking up to them with his partner following, he looked around. "These are our relics?"

Leaf whistled a couple notes as he turned in a small circle. "Some of them are missing," he noted. He then stopped as he heard a loud roar in the distance. "And it sounds like a large Grimm just woke up out in the forest."

"Hopefully it stays away from us," Vio said nervously. "After that Ursa, I'd prefer it if we didn't meet any other large Grimm." Shuddering at fighting an even bigger Grimm, he walked around the circular ruins. Stopping at the black knight, he picked up the larger than normal chess piece and pocketed it. "Alright, we've got our relic."

"Hey, Vio!" Eye twitching at the voice, he looked up a nearby hill and saw Yang and the black haired girl standing there, with the former enthusiastically waving to him. She ran down the hill as her partner calmly walked down after her. In no time at all, the blonde was right in front of him with a flirty smile. "So, how're you doing?"

He rolled his eyes at her. "I'm fine, Yang. I found a partner, and we just got our relic."

The other girl nodded to his partner. "Hey Leaf."

"Hey Blake. Fancy hearing you here."

She chuckled and shook her head at the green haired Faunus' joke. "Chess pieces?" asked Blake as she looked at the ruins. "Those are the relics?"

"Looks like it," replied Vio as he kept Yang away with an arm to her head. She kept swinging her arms trying to get to him. For some reason, she never thought to just hit the arm keeping her away.

Eventually giving up and sticking her tongue out at him, she moved away from the dark-colored teen and started looking at the remaining pieces. She stopped with a smile and held up the yellow Knight. "How about a cute little pony?" she asked her partner.

Blake chuckled and rolled her eyes a bit. "Sure."

The blonde walked over to the other three teens. "Well that wasn't too hard."

"Well, it's not like this place is hard to find," replied Blake.

"Indeed it isn't," agreed Vio.

"I did all the work though," complained Leaf.

At that moment, the group of four heard a shrill scream. "Some girl's in trouble!" panicked Yang. "Did you guys hear that?" The two with sight were looking upwards as Leaf held his ears from the pitch of the scream. "Didn't any of you guys hear that?" demanded Yang. "What should we do?"

"HEAD'S UP!"

**And there we go, that is where Emerald Forest ended. I'll admit, it's kind of a pain getting the dialogue accurate, but I feel it's worth it.**


	7. Players and Pieces

**I do not own RWBY.**

**Vio: Me**

**Nudar: Hunter-Pyros**

**Leaf: Remvis**

**Album: anamisL1130**

**Players and Pieces**

"Guys, did you hear that? What should we do?" asked Yang.

Blake pointed up to the air, and Yang followed her and Vio's eyes. "Heads up!" screamed Ruby as she fell towards them from above. As she got closer to them, Jaune slammed into her in mid-air, sending them crashing into the trees.

Vio was silent for a moment. "The hell?"

"Did your sister just fall from the sky?" Blake asked her partner.

"I-"

The blonde was interrupted as a couple trees shook and a roar came from the same direction. A large Ursa came staggering in while swinging its paws. There was a blast of pink energy from behind it before it flopped forward with the red-headed girl falling off of it.

"Aw… it's broken," she whined. She then stood back up and climbed onto the fallen Grimm, and started trying to balance on its neck while making airplane noises.

At that moment, the black haired boy with the dark green, long-sleeved tailcoat came running up to the downed Grimm panting. Stopping to catch his breath, he leaned against the Ursa. "Nora… please… don't ever do that again." When he looked up, the girl (Nora apparently) was gone and over at the relics.

"Oooh." She grabbed the yellow Rook and held it on high before balancing it on her foot and then her hand. "I'm queen of the castle~! I'm queen of the castle~!" The two girls and Vio stared at her oddly as Leaf looked confused about what was happening.

"NORA!"

She giggled as she stood up straight. "Coming Ren!" tilting her head and catching the piece, she skipped over to her partner.

"Did she just ride in on an Ursa?" asked Leaf. _What kind of person does that?_

Another roar, this one louder, rang out as Pyrrha came running out of the forest with a Death Stalker following her. She kept running as she dodged its claws and looked around for someone. "Jaune!" she called out.

"Pyrrha!" yelled the boy from the tree he had landed in.

Ruby got her bearings and stood up on the branch. "Woah," she gasped seeing the situation the others were in. As she jumped off the branch, Jaune tried calling her name to get her to wait.

She rolled onto the ground before standing up. "Ruby?" asked Yang.

"Yang!" cheered the smaller girl as she went to hug Yang.

"NORA!" yelled the hyper girl as she popped up between them.

As Pyrrha kept running from the Death Stalker, Album and Nudar ran out from the forest at break neck speed as crashes were heard in the distance; both teens were cursing up a storm as they ran. "Did those three seriously run all the way here with Grimm on their tails?"

Yang let out a frustrated yell as small bits of flame swirled around her, making the boys back off a bit from her, with Leaf's ears twitching from her volume. "I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something crazy happens again?!" she yelled angrily.

The group was mostly silent, with Leaf rubbing his sore ears and Nora humming something cheery and laughing happily when Ren joined them. Ruby broke the nervous silence as she looked upwards. "Um, Yang?"

They looked up to where she was pointing and saw Weiss hanging from the claw of a gigantic Nevermore. "How could you leave me?!" she cried down at them.

Vio faced palmed at what happened to his friend as most of the others stared in shock.

"What's happening?" whispered Leaf to Blake.

"A rich girl is stuck on a Nevermore's talon," she replied dryly.

"I said jump," muttered Ruby.

"She's gonna fall," commented Blake.

"She'll be fine," assured Ruby.

"She's falling," Ren stated.

As Vio pulled out his gun and switched his yellow Dust for green, Jaune jumped out of his tree and caught her in mid-air. "Just, _dropping in_?" he asked charmingly. He then realized they were still extremely high up in the air. "Oh no!"

As they fell together, Leaf started walking over to where they would land. As soon as Jaune hit the ground, he extended his arms and caught Weiss bridal style before stepping to the side to avoid their swords. "My hero," she muttered sourly as she looked down at Jaune. When she looked at her savior, she went wide eyed and forced her way out of Leaf's arms. "Let me go!" she snapped. When she freed herself, she wound up stepping right on Jaune's back with her heels.

"My back," he groaned in agony.

A third roar filled the air as a massive reptilian Grimm stepped out of the forest, taking several trees with it. Its mask had curved red lines down each side that joined together at the top in a diamond shape. Its body resembled that of a long black salamander, but with bony white protrusions sticking out along its back. Each foot had large scythe-like claws, and its tail ended with a large bony spike. Two pairs of long fangs stuck out from under its mask, and were dripping with black venom. Its eyes, much like all creatures of Grimm, were glowing red. Pulling back its head, it let out an earth-shaking roar, one that startled Pyrrha enough to get knocked aside by the Death Stalker's pincers.

The red haired warrior landed on the ground in front of the gathered group. "Great, the whole gang's here," Yang said sarcastically. "Now we can all die together!"

"Not if I can help it," Ruby replied confidently. With a yell, she ran towards the Death Stalker while pulling out her scythe, disregarding Yang's protests. Firing a couple shots from Crescent Rose, she launched herself at the large scorpion. With a roar, it knocked her back and deflected her attack. Landing on her hands and knees, she quickly forced herself back up. "D-don't worry!" she called with a bit of a quiver in her voice. "Totally fine!"

Turning around, she stared in slight fear of the massive Grimm looming over her. Firing a round into its face, she folded up Crescent Rose and started running from the large monster. "Ruby!" cried Yang as she ran to help her sister with Nudar following suit.

As the young girl ran, the Nevermore flew overhead while crying out. Flying a bit higher, it fired dozens of its feathers down towards her, one of which caught her hood and stopped her from going any further. Yang kept running towards her, but fell down to avoid getting impaled by the Nevermore. The large reptilian Grimm reared back as if it were going to attack, but was knocked back a bit when Nudar fired a large Earth Dust round into its armored head.

"Ruby, get out of there!" yelled the blonde.

"I'm trying!" panicked Ruby as she tried to pull her hood loose. As Nudar tried readying the next round, the Death Stalker approached the trapped girl. With a hiss, it began raising the golden stinger on its tail. Ruby gasped in terror as the golden object began its descent.

"RUBY!" cried Yang. A white blur shot past her and towards the trapped girl. Stopping between Ruby and the Death Stalker, Weiss raised up Myrtenaster and created a large wall of ice to hold the stinger in place.

"You are _so_ childish," she scoffed in an annoyed tone.

Ruby opened her eyes to the Death Stalker's tail stopped in front of her and her partner pulling her rapier out of the barrier of ice. "Weiss?"

"And dimwitted, and hyperactive, and don't even get me _started_ on your fighting style," continued the white haired girl as she looked down at Ruby. "And I suppose I can be a bit…" she hesitated for a moment, "difficult… but if we're going to do this, we're going to do it together." She leaned down to look Ruby in the eye. "So if _you_ stop trying to show off, I'll be… nicer."

_That'd be an improvement,_ thought Vio as he remembered telling his friend the exact same thing about her behavior on their way to Beacon.

"I'm not trying to show off," replied Ruby. "I want you to know I can do this!"

"You're fine," replied the heiress as she walked away.

Ruby gave a sigh of relief and muttered something about her knees. Getting up, she went wide-eyed at the sight of the trapped Grimm. "Woah." The Death Stalker was practically held in place and was struggling to free its tail from the ice as it struggled and roared.

As Yang ran over to her sister, Vio nodded to the returning Weiss. "You did good, Princess," he told her proudly.

She punched him in the arm. "_That_ was for not finding me fast enough," she growled at him in anger.

Roaring again, the Nevermore flew back towards them as the large ground-based Grimm recovered. "Guys, those things are coming back," panicked Jaune. "What are we gonna do?"

"Look, there's no point in dilly-dallying," stated Weiss. "Our objective is right in front of us."

"She's right," agreed a now serious Ruby. "Our objective is to grab an artifact and make it to the cliffs. There's no point in fighting these things."

"Run and live. That's an idea I can get behind," replied Jaune.

"Then let's finish up what we started," said Nudar as he nodded with his partner. He, Ruby, and Jaune walked up to the circle and grabbed the Black Knight, the Yellow Knight, and the Yellow Rook respectively. Sharing a nod, the three returned to the group as the Death Stalker began freeing itself.

"It's time we left," Ren informed them as he noticed the trapped Grimm.

"Right. Let's go!" With a wave of her hand, the remaining eleven followed her lead towards the cliffs.

Leaf smirked as he heard the confidence in Ruby's voice. "What is it?" asked his partner.

"That girl," he replied. "That Ruby has what it takes to be a leader. I can tell." _That confidence is a sign of a natural leader._

As the group approached the cliff through more ruins, the large ground based Grimm crashed through the ruins alongside them as the Nevermore flew ahead of them. The group took cover behind various pillars as the Nevermore perched itself and let out a soul piercing shriek.

"Well that's great," complained Yang.

Jaune turned around and saw the Death Stalker crash through the trees. "Oh man, RUN!"

The group ran from their various covers as the large bird Grimm became airborne again. Ren looked at the girl next to him. "Nora, distract it!"

With a nod, the crazy girl ran from her cover and jumped over the Nevermore's attack. Pulling Magnhild off her back, she fired several explosive rounds at the monstrous bird with a happy laugh. Roaring, it flew away from the pink explosions as the other monstrous Grimm crashed onto the scene.

"We'll handle this one!" yelled Vio as he and Leaf charged the monster. "Let's go, Leaf."

"Count us in too!" yelled Album as she and Nudar joined the charge. The blond boy fired a fire round into the Grimm's face to get its attention. Ignoring the other groups running by it, the large beast turned its attention solely on the four of them.

"Now I recognize that mug," muttered Vio when he got a good look at its face. "I thought this bastard looked familiar."

"What is it?" asked Leaf as he unsheathed his katana and got into a fighting stance and the Grimm reared back on its hind legs again.

"It's called a Ladon. It's on the same level as a Nevermore. Basically," he stopped talking as an orange glow formed on the underside of its neck. Slamming to the ground, it let out a stream of burning flames towards the group. Vio nearly killed his Aura by blocking with his Semblance while the others managed to jump out of the way. "It's a dragon."

"Well, shit," growled Album. She pulled her hammer off her shoulder and held it in both hands. "Either way, it's gonna die."

"The weakest spot on its body is the neck when it's heating up before a breath attack," Vio informed them as he pulled Black Bolt out and entered an attacking stance. "Until then, aim for the eyes and between the spines on its back."

"RIGHT!" Leaf took the first move and charged with his katana held low as he ran towards the Ladon. It raised its claw up to crush him, but he dodged to the side, he slashed the wrist of the limb with his dark green blade. It screamed in pain as black ichor-like blood started coming from the relatively shallow wound.

It turned its head towards Leaf with a growl, and opened itself to another attack. Abum ran up its head with her hammer in hand as he swung towards the base of the Ladon's neck. She cracked the scales, but wasn't able to break anything. With a roar, the dragon tossed the white-haired girl off of its back. She rolled to a stop and winced at the soreness in her ankle from the impact. "Damn it, that's gonna hurt in the morning."

"We need to work together!" Vio called to his allies as he fired a couple of rounds at the Ladon.

"And how do you propose we do that?!" snapped Album as she dodged a swipe from the Ladon's tail. Landing on the wider part of her tail, she tried to run up its back, but the Grimm bent its back suddenly and sent her flying again.

"Like this!" yelled Nudar as he ran towards the Grimm with his sword over his shoulder and with both hands on the handle. As the large creature of Grimm tried to hit him with its tail, it shrieked when he carved off the bony tip of its tail with a powerful swing. With an infuriated roar, it whipped its tail upwards and flung him back into the ground. It raised its tail up to crush him, but Vio fired a couple lightning rounds at its tail. With the limb stopped, it backed off from the group of semi-recovered teens.

"OPEN FIRE!" ordered Vio to the group of four. He chambered another yellow Dust Round and began firing the last four rounds in his gun. Standing alongside him, Nudar fired a fiery round into its face and pissed it off even more. Before it could retaliate, Album began firing rounds into its side with her own gun. Leaf, taking advantage of its momentary distraction, charged in and began slashing at the now undefended stomach with his katana. "Leaf, what are you doing?" yelled Vio as he switched his Dust Rounds to the red rounds.

"I'm trying to make it easier to kill!" he yelled back. "If I can hit the stomach enough-" He stopped when he heard the wind rushing as the beast began rising. As it began falling, he jumped out of the way and rolled to a stop beside his partner. "Unlike you guys, I don't depend on a gun."

"Great," muttered Album as she took the empty belt of rounds from her gun and switched it back to its hammer form. "Then that means we're depending on two guns and a couple of melee weapons."

Vio looked the Grimm over as its neck began glowing an orange red and kept increasing in brightness. "If we can strike now as a team, we might be able to kill this asshole." He looked at the others and quickly explained his strategy to the three of them.

"Sounds like a decent plan," stated Leaf when his partner finished. He turned in the direction of the Ladon as he unsheathed his katana. "I can feel where the heat is building up in its neck."

"And I should be able to hit a target like that with this bad boy," added Nudar as he shifted his sword to its cannon form. "I just hope it holds out long enough."

"And I can't wait to smash this thing to pieces!" chuckled Album as she tightened her grip on the hammer.

"Then let's do this." Vio slid out the ammo and quickly slid in his third and final clip of yellow Dust. "ATTACK!"

Nudar started by firing an Ice round at the Ladon's mouth. When the round impacted, it froze over the Grimm's mouth and kept it from opening it due to the Ice's Dust nature. As it began and tried descending, Vio fired a series of lightning rounds in rapid succession into the bottom of its jaw, making it fall backwards from the impact of the lightning blasts. After landing on its back, Leaf ran up its body to the source of the still building heat. Jumping into the air, he stabbed his blade into the glowing flesh but didn't get very far before having to jump away from the intensifying heat.

Nudar dropped his cannon and cupped his hands so Album could jump into them like a slingshot. "Have fun."

"Oh I will," she said darkly with a tone of sadistic glee. With a grunt, he threw her into the air as she pushed against his throw. As she flew into the air, she laughed crazily. "LEEROY~!" Stopping for a moment in mid-air, she saw the others fighting their Grimm and winning in the distance. She also saw the other hammer-wielder get launched into the air as well. _Copycat._ Falling back towards the ground, she held the hammer back behind her head. "JEEENNNNKINNNNSSSS!" Right as she was over the Ladon, it began forcing its way up. With a heavy swing, she hit Leaf's katana like it was a nail and sent the now glowing blade flying out the back of its neck where she had hit it earlier. With a dying groan, the Ladon fell to the side when Vio and Nudar fired a couple of rounds to knock it aside to not crush Leaf's sword with the Grimm's body.

As the large beast began giving off wisps of dark smoke, Album walked over and picked up the Faunus boy's sword. "Here you go," she said in a slightly awkward tone while handing it back to him.

"Thanks," he replied. When he took the sword, he hissed a little and bounced the sword back and forth in his hands before managing to get the still warm metal blade into its sheath. When his blade was sheathed, he turned to their impromptu leader. "Well Vio, what now?"

He looked around at the group as they put away their weapons. "Well, I guess we might as well go catch up to the others." Collectively agreeing, the group hurried down the path in time to see Ruby get sling shot at the trapped Nevermore and watched her drag it up the cliff along a trail of Weiss' glyphs. While running, she kept firing rounds from her scythe to continue moving upwards. When she reached the top of the cliff, she kept moving until her momentum decapitated the massive Grimm.

Nudar whistled a low note that showed he was impressed. "Damn, little Red's got skills."

"Indeed she does," agreed Ren when Jaune's group noticed their arrival. "Ruby and the others not only demonstrated superb combat skills, but also amazing team work with an opponent like that."

"They are an amazing team," added Pyrrha.

"They took that beastie down like it was no problem at all!" cheered Nora.

"C'mon," said Vio as he started walking towards the downed bridge. "Let's go meet up with them. We've still got an assignment to complete."

-Later, the main hall-

The first years all stood in the crowd of initiates, many of which were already divided into teams. As Team CRDL (led by "Sleaze Ball Cardin," as Album referred to him) walked off the stage, Vio's group was called up. "Violerous Black, Leaf Sonara, Album White, and Nudar Athenos," began Ozpin as he looked over the four students. Overhead, their pictures were displayed on the large screens with their main colorations behind each head shot. "The four of you gathered the Black Knight pieces." Their pictures moved to one side to show their Chess Piece. "From this day forward, you will work together as Team VNLA (vanilla). Led by: Violerous Black." The crowd clapped as Nudar patted him on the shoulder.

"Congrats, _Violerous,_" he said cheekily as Album and Leaf chuckled at their leader's name.

"Call me that again, and I will hurt you," he growled back. "I much rather prefer being called Vio," he then told Ozpin as he shook the headmaster's hand.

The man nodded with an amused smirk. "Noted."

The newly named Team VNLA walked off the stage and into the crowd staying close together. "Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the White Rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team JNPR. Led by… Jaune Arc."

The team clapped for their new leader as he looked shocked. "Wha- me?!"

He nodded to Jaune with an amused smirk. "I expect great things from you, young man."

The shell-shocked teen was practically dragged off stage by the other members of his team as Ruby and her friends congratulated them. They settled in front of VNLA and were congratulated by them.

"Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao-Long, the four of you retrieved the White Knight pieces." He looked at the group of four girls. "From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY." The screen overhead arranged their initials into their Team's name like it did with the others. "Led by," the group of girls, specifically Weiss, looked a bit nervous. "Ruby Rose." She looked slightly less shocked than Jaune had been, but started smiling as Yang hugged her. "I expect great things from all of you," he told the group. The other two teams cheered and clapped for their friends.

Vio smirked as he clapped for the girls. _Well, I guess things might be interesting after all._


	8. The Badge and the Burden

**Vio- Me**

**Nudar- Hunter-Pyros**

**Leaf-Remvis**

**Album- anamisL1130**

**The Badge and the Burden**

Team VNLA was sleeping soundly in their room, with Album being closest to the bathroom, then Nudar, Leaf, and finally Vio against the opposite wall from Album. They were all in semi-blissful slumber, until a sharp whistling from next door made Leaf bolt upright screaming as he held his ears.

**-Vio's Dream-**

_Vio was a lot younger, back when he was twelve. Walking through the halls of the Black Manor, he stopped at a slightly ajar door with light streaming out. Pushing it open, he saw a slightly older boy hastily packing a duffel bag. "Bro? What are you doing?"_

_The teen turned around and his eyes widened when he saw his little brother. "Vio? What are you doing up?" Vio liked his brother, he was the one who gave him his nickname and called him it the most. _

"_I couldn't sleep, and I saw your light was on." He looked over at the bag. "You're running away, aren't you?" _

_The older boy sighed heavily. He had met a girl recently, and kept butting heads with his parents ever since he met the unnamed girl. The boy had been spending all his free time with his 'girlfriend', and kept provoking his father into serious yelling matches. The two even fought in his father's study. He looked over at the little boy. "Sorry Vio. I just can't take it here anymore."_

_Vio ran and latched onto his older brother's waist. "NO! You can't!" He clung tightly to his older brother. _

"_Vio-"_

"_NO!"_

_He chuckled after a pause and coaxed Vio off his waist. "Alright, I'll stay. But I still want you to promise me one thing: Never change. No matter what mom and dad do, never change who you are." He held out his right pinky. "Promise?"_

_Smiling, Vio wrapped his own pinky around his brother's. "Cross my heart and hope to die."_

"_Eat a thousand needles if I lie," finished his brother. Grinning, he picked up his brother. "C'mon, let's get you to bed."_

_The younger boy agreed and let his brother tuck him into bed. "See you in the morning bro."_

"_You too, Vio." _

_The next morning, when Vio woke up, it was because he heard his father angrily yelling at his mother as she was crying. It wasn't too loud, but he could tell they were in their room, which was further down the hall from his room. When he climbed out of bed, there was an envelope on his floor in front of the door with his name on it. Opening it up, he found a letter in his brother's handwriting. _

_Vio,_

_I'm sorry for breaking my promise. But I can't stand being here in this horrible family. Dad's a horrible bastard, and mom is just standing by. That girl I met, Cinder, told me some seriously messed up stuff about the family and why we help out the Schnees so much. She's the only one I seriously trust now, and is helping me make things right. I hope you stay the same, little bro, and I hope I'll be able to get you out of there and let you help out someday._

_Your big brother-_

**End dream**

When Leaf started screaming in pain and holding his ears, he fell out of his bed and woke the other three team members up. Vio bolted upright in shock both from his dream and Leaf's screaming.

"You asshole!" yelled Album as she forced her way out of bed. Stomping over to the now silent Faunus and kicked him in the side. "Why the hell did you wake me up this early?!"

"Geez man," groaned Nudar as he rubbed his own ears. "You have quite the set of lungs."

"What's wrong Leaf?" asked a still shaken up Vio. "You just randomly started screaming."

"Not randomly," groaned the fallen Faunus. "There was a piercing whistle from next door that makes my ears hurt like a Grimm's claws in my chest."

"Probably Team RWBY," muttered Nudar as he rubbed his eyes. "I saw them take the room next to ours last night."

"Bunch of bitches," groaned Album as she turned on her heel. Grabbing her uniform from the closet and some underwear, she started walking towards the bathroom. "I'm taking the first shower boys. So stay out." With that, she slammed the door shut and they soon heard the shower running.

"Well, might as well get dressed," sighed Nudar as he got out of his own bed. Walking over to the shared closet, he pulled out the uniform in his size. Vio looked away as the blond teen undressed and got into the black slacks before putting on the dress shirt and vest combo. He struggled a bit with the tie before tossing it aside and putting on the jacket. "Alright you guys. Get dressed."

"Okay," replied Leaf. Whistling a bit, he made his way over to the closet and found one of his uniforms; well, Nudar had to hand his to him when he had grabbed one of Vio's. Despite his blindness, he managed to put on his uniform, but also avoided the trouble of fiddling with his tie. "Why do we need so much clothing for this school exactly?"

"No clue." Nudar looked at Vio. "Dude, you gonna get changed, or what?"

"I'm gonna shower first," he said uncomfortably. At that moment, the shower turned off and the door opened up ten minutes later. Album strolled out in the girl version of the uniform, minus anything on her feet. When she saw two of the boys looking at her feet, she folded her arms.

"I don't do socks and shoes," she told them plainly.

Vio quickly grabbed one of his uniforms out of the closet and quickly got into the bathroom before his team could say anything else. "We'll head to class as soon as I get out," he told them before getting his own shower. About twenty minutes later, he came out of the bathroom in his own uniform, tie and everything. He took a quick look at the clock and their schedule. "Alright, we've got about fifteen minutes to get to Port's class. Let's go." Grabbing his Scroll and bag, Team VNLA followed his lead by getting their stuff and following him down the halls of the dorms and across the courtyards to the main building. It took a minute for them to find their classroom, but once they did, Professor Port looked up at them.

"Ah, Team VNLA, wonderful. You can sit there," he said while pointing to a set of four seats in the second tier of the rounded seats. They sat with Album on the inside, then Leaf, Nudar, and Vio closest to the stairs. They all sat around waiting for the class to start, Teams RWBY and JNPR came rushing in with seconds before the bell rang. After Port directed them to their seats, with Team RWBY in front of them and JNPR off to the side, they began their Grimm Studies class.

"Monsters! De~mons. Prowlers of the Night," said the mustached Huntsman twelve minutes into the class. "Yes, the Creatures of Grimm have many names. But I merely refer to them as 'prey'." He laughed at his joke, something which Vio noticed woke up a napping Ruby. Other than that, nobody really reacted to his attempt at comedy. "Uh… And you shall too, upon graduating from this _prestigious_ academy. Now as I was saying, Vale, as well as the other three kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world. Our planet is absolutely _teeming_ with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces."

Taking a quick look around, Vio saw a few students taking notes (Weiss especially) while others (like Ruby) were struggling to stay awake during the man's lecture. His team, however, was doing neither. Nudar was reading the newest issue of X-Ray and Vav, Album was typing something on her Scroll, and Leaf was drawing what looked like a sketch of the room's layout. _How does he do that without eyes?!_

"That's where we come in," continued the Huntsman, unaware or uncaring about his students' actions. "Huntsmen, Huntresses," he said while winking at Yang with a pointed finger. "Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves. From what, you ask? Why, the very world!" he said this with a dramatic tone and a finger to the ceiling to make his point.

One boy, a row behind and over from Team VNLA stood up with a raised fist. "AH YEAH!" he yelled excitedly. Everyone turned and looked at him strangely, even Leaf managed to do so, and he awkwardly sat back down.

"That is what you are training to become," continued the older man. "But first, a story. A tale of a young, handsome man… me!" As the man began droning on into a story about his youth, Vio instead directed his attention to the boards behind him about the common species of Grimm. Fishing out a notebook and a pencil, he started copying down the boards as best he could from the team's seats.

Meanwhile, Leaf began sketching where the various people were in his diagram. He knew Vio had noticed what he was doing, but figured his team leader didn't realize he was using his Semblance to make his sketch. While his ears made a near-perfect sonar system, his Semblance further heightened his other three senses and helped him process his senses' feedback faster. The sensei he learned kendo from had named his Semblance "Shingantsu" because it showed him the world around him without his eyes. With it, he was able to tell how far everything was on the page in front of him, and could figure out the appropriate distance based on the feedback from his ears. He didn't shade though; for all he was worth, he couldn't handle something like that for his life.

As he kept drawing the path their teacher was taking as he walked, Leaf's concentration was slightly disturbed by the girls in front of him. Ruby (he knew by her scent and where it was coming from) was giggling and making fart noises, thus making Yang and Blake start giggling as he went on about his grandfather smelling like cabbages. He heard the fourth member of Team RWBY (Weiss by process of elimination) growl angrily at her. When the teacher cleared his throat to regain peoples' attention, Leaf sighed in relief when they all became quiet and he could resume his sketching.

"In the end," continued Port, "The Beowolf was no match for my sheer tenacity. And I returned to my village with the beast in captivity and my head held high, celebrated as a hero!" There was a blissful near-silence after he finished his story. _Finally, a pause. Even I have limits as to how much of that guy's voice I can stand, _thought the Faunus. "The moral of the story-" '_THERE WAS A POINT?!' _was the collective thought of Team VNLA, as all four had heard the man's story, whether it be completely or in pieces.

"A true Huntsman must be honorable," Nudar thought back to all the times he had gotten into trouble due to his habit of picking fights with local gangs. "A true Huntsman must be dependable," Album thought about the number of times she had to run off when criminals or the Axe Gang were attacking places because she looked so much like Weiss Schnee. "A true Huntsman must be strategic, well educated, and wise." Vio looked at his partner, and both (without realizing it) reluctantly conceded to fitting most of his template of a good hunter. "So, who among you believes themselves' to be the embodiment of these traits?"

Weiss' hand shot into the air. "I do, sir!" she declared with an angry undertone to her voice.

"Well then," replied the professor with an amused tone. "Let's find out." He turned his head, and those with working eyes noticed a large metal crate with two glowing eyes glaring out of it with a savage snarling directed towards the older Huntsman. "Come forward, and face your opponent."

Weiss stepped forward (after being excused to quickly change into her combat skirt and get her weapon) and held out Myrtenaster in a ready stance Vio recognized from their days training together.

"Go Weiss!" cheered Yang.

"Fight well," encouraged Blake as she waved a little flag with 'RWBY' on it.

"You can do it, Weiss!" called Vio from his seat.

While Album looked at him with a raised eyebrow, Nudar gave him a shit-eating grin. "Dude, you totally have the hots for her."

"Shut up," snapped the leader. "She's my best friend. Of course I'd support her."

"Yeah. _Right_," he said while drawing out the second word until Vio chucked a pencil at him.

"Represent Team RWBY!" cheered Ruby with a lot of enthusiasm.

"Ruby! I'm trying to focus!" snapped the heiress.

"Oh." Ruby looked a little sad after her partner yelled at her, and Vio could only shake his head at how hostile his friend was acting. "Sorry."

"Alright!" called Professor Port as he raised up his axe/gun thing. "Let the match… begin!" With a swing, he chopped open the door and let the trapped Grimm out, revealing an adult Boarbatusk. With a roar, the Grimm charged towards the girl in an attempt to skewer her. With a roll to the side, she swiped at its side, but Myrtenaster bounced off with a loud clang. As she recovered, the Grimm stopped and turned itself towards her while glaring towards her.

Port laughed at what he saw. "Wasn't expecting _that_, were you?"

"Hang in there, Weiss!" encouraged Ruby. Pulling her rapier back, Weiss launched herself at the Boarbatusk head on with Myrtenaster poised to skewer its head. Unfortunately, it bounced off the armored plating (making her fly into the air a bit from the recoil) and got stuck against the Grimm's tusks with her trying to pull the weapon loose.

"Ah, the old approach, I like it!" commented the teacher as he stayed off to the side.

"Come on, Weiss! Show it whose boss!" Ruby sounded like she was watching a sports event or something. The heiress turned to glare at her leader, but was shaken loose by the Grimm. Her weapon was sent flying, and the Grimm knocked her to the ground.

"Oh ho! Now what will you do without your weapon?" asked Port in amusement. Weiss looked a bit scared as the Grimm barreled towards her, but rolled to the side and avoided an untimely end as the boar kept charging and hit the seats' barrier/desk.

The Schnee girl recovered and quickly made her way to her weapon, grabbing it as she slid to retrieve it. "Weiss! Aim for the belly!" called Ruby. "There's no armor underneath!"

"Stop telling me what to do!" yelled the white haired girl in anger. _Here we go again,_ thought Vio as he saw Weiss once again going back to her old habits from their days in combat school. The Grimm jumped up at that moment, and began spinning madly. Hitting the ground, it moved towards her like a bladed wheel at extreme speeds. Thinking fast, she quickly created a Glyph to block the beast, knocking it onto its back from the impact. Jumping up, she created a second Glyph to hold herself in the air. After the Glyph turned black, she launched herself blade first, impaling the Creature of Grimm through the exposed stomach at high speeds. Skidding to a stop, the Boarbatusk thrashed its legs before becoming still as Weiss held it in place.

"Bravo, bravo!" cheered Port. "It would seem we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntress in training. Panting a bit, she lowered Myrtenaster as the Grimm began dissolving into a dark smoke. "I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today," he said with a hint of sadness in his voice. "Be sure to cover the assigned readings, AND, stay vigilant!" He put both arms behind his back. "Class dismissed."

As the students began packing up, Vio looked at his teammates. "You guys go on ahead," he told them. "I want to talk with Weiss real quick."

"Okay," nodded Leaf as he and the others started walking off.

"Use protection, and no hickeys," Album told him as she passed.

"We aren't like that!" he snapped as she and Nudar started running off laughing.

As they left, he turned and ran after his friend, being just ahead of Ruby and managed to catch her before her leader as she stormed off. "Weiss!" he snapped as he grabbed her arm. Forcefully turning her, she glared at him.

"What?" she snapped back.

"What the hell is your problem?!" he demanded angrily.

"What's _my_ problem?!" She scoffed at him. "What's wrong with _her_?" she said angrily, not knowing Ruby was around the corner listening. "She's supposed to be a leader, and all she's been so far is a nuisance!"

"What are you talking about?" he asked in annoyed tone. "What did she do?"

"That's just it! She didn't do _anything_ to earn her position!" she said angrily. "Back in the forest, she acted like a child, and has only continued to do so!"

"What is your problem?" His voice took on a slightly saddened tone. "What about everything you were saying about 'working together' with her and teamwork?"

"Not a team led by _her,_" she replied. "I've studied, _and_ trained. And quite frankly, I deserve to be the leader, like you are with your team." She turned around and went to walk away. "Ozpin made a mistake." Her tone had a sense of ending to it, and she walked away from him.

After she left, he clenched his fists tightly when Ruby walked out from behind the corner. "Does… does she really mean all that?" she asked fearfully with a couple tears in her eyes.

He gave her a sympathetic look. "Trust me, Ruby. Weiss is just a bit difficult. Everything has to be a certain way, and if not, it takes her a while to adjust if she can't change it. She's probably a bit upset that she couldn't be leader. It also doesn't help that she hates being bossed around. Just give her time to cool off. That's all you can really do right now." Giving her an encouraging smile and a pat on the head, he walked the way he had come, leaving Ruby to her thoughts.

-**Team VNLA's room-**

When the leader returned to his team's room, he found them in various activities. Nudar was reading his comic again, Album was hanging a spare sheet from the ceiling around her bed (probably for privacy reasons), and Leaf had an electric piano out while occasionally playing a couple of keys before shaking his head. All three were in casual sweats and shirts. Album, hearing their leader's return, looked at him from where she was standing on her bed.

"Hey," she said as he took off his jacket. "How was making out with your girlfriend?"

With a growl, he pegged his balled-up jacket at her, making her fall over off the bed. "I don't know, Album. How's your bitchy attitude doing?"

She sat back up with a pissed look on her face. "What the f*ck is your problem?!"

"You!" he snapped. "Seriously, I walk in a crappy mood, and all you care about is making fun of the fact my best friend is a girl! Do you ever act serious?!"

She stormed up to him and shoved his jacket back into his chest. "Don't you dare talk to me like that," she said menacingly. "I'm stronger than I look buddy. And I can hurt you quite easily."

"So that's how you handle things?" he asked angrily. "If someone talks back, you resort to violence? You know what, I wouldn't be surprised if you act like this to _everyone!_"

"Keep talking, _Violerous. _You know something?" she asked him. "You must have something going on with that Weiss chick if you're acting like this. She was just like this with that Ruby kid."

"No. If I wanted to, I could be much worse than she ever could if I wanted-"

"SHUT UP!" Leaf yelled at his arguing teammates. Despite being blind, he managed to glare at them; he even took off his glasses for added emphasis. "You're both at fault here!" He pointed at Album. "You need to learn to get used to your team. I get that you may not like working with us, especially after how you and Nudar became partners during initiation, but you can't change anything that already happened. So stop being a brat, and stop antagonizing our leader!"

He then pointed at Vio. "Vio, I get that you're in a shitty mood, but you don't need to take it out on Album simply because she got under your skin. She's not being serious, and is just trying to help." She went to object at that statement, but Nudar shot her a glare that said 'don't even think it'. "You're supposed to lead us, so don't take out anger on those following you. It'll make it that much harder for others to follow your example."

Album flopped down on her bed. "Easy for you to say," she muttered. "Not only are you not a leader, but you're a Faunus. The pack thing comes naturally to you."

Vio and Nudar paled a bit, fearing Leaf would lash out at her himself for her racist remarks, but he simply put his glasses back on. "Actually, it isn't," he replied after a moment. "I was raised by Faunus parents, yes, but I've spent the last seven years in a primarily human orphanage. The species makes no difference to me. I was raised on the _original_ White Fang doctrine: that humans and Faunus can get along just fine if we try to settle things peacefully." He turned in her direction. "In all honesty, if you humans think we Faunus are savages who only fight for ourselves, what do you think we see you as?"

His words brought an uneasy silence to the room as his words sank in. "I'm sorry," Vio eventually said. "I guess growing up with Weiss causes similar reactions to anger in the two of us."

"And I guess I'm sorry for saying she's your girlfriend so much," Album said reluctantly after her blond partner shoved her in the shoulder. "But you gotta understand, it seriously looks like the two of you are a couple," she said quickly.

Vio chuckled a bit at that. "Believe me, I know. I tell her that all the time, but she never seems to listen to me about it."

As the two laughed, Nudar looked at Leaf. "How did you do that?" he asked in amazement.

Leaf chuckled in response to the blond boy's question. "How do you think I kept order at the orphanage after I got there and got the bullying under control?" 'Looking' back to his keyboard, he began playing a couple keys in attempt at starting a song. "Why can't I remember how that song goes?" he muttered with a shake of his head.

"What song?" asked Vio as he sat down on his partner's bed.

"There was a song I heard on the radio from a live concert, and it was amazing. Only problem is," he played a couple more keys that Vio sounded slightly familiar, if off-key. "I can't remember how it went."

"I think I know what song it was," he sighed as he pulled out his Scroll. Going through the music player function, he quickly found what he was looking for. Tapping the song, he set it down as the song began to play. After a bit of music and the murmur of a crowd, a girl's voice started singing.

"_Mirror, tell me something, who's the loneliest of all?"_

"That's it," replied Leaf as he listened attentively. "But, how'd you know what song it was?"

He sighed again. "Because I was there. It was a contest of sorts that Weiss participated in. This was the song she sang. In fact, this is her singing right now."

"Wow." Leaf seemed taken aback a bit. "She's amazing." Album looked at him strangely before returning to trying to hang the curtain around her bed.

Vio looked at her attempt and the staples she was using. "Try using nails or tacks," he told her. "Those have a better chance of staying put compared to staples.

She looked at him with a bit of shock before nodding. "Yeah, thanks Vio."

He nodded to her before going into the bathroom with his casual clothes to change. "Any time, Album."

**Ok, Leaf's semblance. Because Remvis designed a character that sounded eerily like Uzu Sanagaeyama from Kill la Kill, I went with naming his Semblance after the line on the Wiki about his eyes and abilities:**

**"She (Ryuko) took his eyes (_Tengantsu_) and gave him the world (_Shingantsu_). "**

**But yeah, this one took longer simply because I've been doing stuff for my Senior Year in order to graduate High School. Seriously, whoever invented Senior Projects can kiss Bender's shiny metal ass. Well, reviews are appreciated, but not required. Bye!**


	9. Jaunedice

**First, let's clear some stuff up. First: Vio's sexuality. Vio is not gay, like that one Guest asked. He just doesn't like flirts, like Yang. He is very interested in women. Second, his semblance. Vio's semblance allows him to focus his Aura into certain places to create a near-perfect shield. However, it pulls Aura from other places, hence how he blocked an Ursa claw in front, but still got hurt by a tree trunk to his back. Well, let's get going.**

**I don't own RWBy, and you know who made who.**

**Jaunedice**

Jaune stood hunched over, panting from exhaustion. A spot light shone down on him and his opponent, one Cardin Winchester. Cardin was staring at Jaune in amusement with his axe over his shoulder. The blond boy had Crocea Mors was drawn, but was little use when he had barely any energy left to fight and was basically being used as a crutch. Trying to catch his breath, he looked up at his opponent. Cardin laughed a bit at the state Jaune was in. With a final burst of energy, the blond boy charged Cardin full force and swung his sword with his remaining energy. Cardin, however, dodged it quite easily.

When Crocea Mors' blade hit the ground, Jaune stood dumbfounded as his opponent slammed the large mace into the shield, sending both boy and weapon flying. Jaune was quick to get up, and opted to hold his sword with both hands. With a loud yell, he swung at the leader of CRDL, only to get blocked when Cardin used the handle of the mace to block Jaune's attack.

The larger boy was more than capable of pushing his opponent's blade back. "This is the part, where you lose," he told Jaune matter-of-factly.

The smaller boy glared up at him. "Over my dead-ooh!" He was cut off when Cardin kneed him in the stomach. Lowering his guard, he put his hands to his stomach in pain and fell over.

Chuckling, Cardin loomed over Jaune and raised up his mace to deal the final blow. As Jaune looked up, the lights came back on while a buzzer sounded. The large fighter stopped his attack as Goodwitch's voice called out. "That's enough," she told him. She walked onto the fighting stage as the other teams clapped politely. "Students, as you can see, Mr. Arc's Aura has now dropped into the red," she explained as they took note of the massive screens depicting both boys Aura levels. "In a Tournament-style duel, this would indicate that Jaune is no longer fit for battle, and that the official may call the match."

Looking around, Vio noticed Pyrrha staring at her leader with a bit of sadness and… _Longing?_ He wasn't sure if he knew what the Invincible Girl was thinking if he thought she looked like that.

Meanwhile, Goodwitch looked down at Jaune. "Mr. Arc, it's been weeks now. Please try to refer to your Scroll in combat," she sighed as he took out the device and looked at its readings. "Gauging your Aura will help you decide when it's _appropriate_ to attack or when it is better to move to a more… defensive strategy." He looked absolutely miserable on the stage. "We wouldn't want you to be gobbled up by a Beowolf, now would we?"

"Poor Jaune," muttered Nudar as he watched the scene. "He got his ass beaten senseless."

"No kidding," muttered Album. Team VNLA was sitting in their usual row-pattern, thus next to their partners with Nudar and Leaf in the middle as usual. The white haired girl then leaned forwards to look at her team leader. "Hey, how long do you think it'll take me to beat him up like that?"

"You're not beating up our friend," sighed Vio in annoyance. "Besides, I thought you wanted to fight Yang."

"I do. And Pyrrha, Nora, Ruby, Blake, Nudar-"

"HEY!"

She continued on counting the names on her fingers. "And Ren, all of Team CRDL, Weiss, Leaf, and you." She looked back at her leader as he gave her a raised eyebrow. "Jaune would just be more like a practice dummy before I challenged someone else. You know, a warm-up."

"Remember, everyone," called the Deputy-Headmistress. "The Vytal festival is only a few months away!" Team VNLA, as well as everyone else present, started getting excited, with Yang throwing punches at the air in excitement. Even Weiss was getting really excited, something Vio was glad about. "It won't be long before students from the other kingdoms start arriving in Vale, so keep practicing! Those who choose to compete in the tournament will be representing all of Vale!" The bell rang at that moment, indicating they were all free to leave their sparring class. Teams RWBY and VNLA stood around waiting for JNPR to reclaim their leader.

After collecting a depressed Jaune, the teams made their way to the cafeteria where they all picked up their lunches. Album and Nudar were sitting next to Ren on the JNPR side with Vio and Leaf on the RWBY side with Vio next to a reading Blake. Shortly after they had started eating, Nora started telling them one of her stories. "There we were, in the middle of the night!" she said ominously.

"It was day," commented Ren.

"We were surrounded… by Ursi!" she continued on while hissing on the 's'. Yang was leaning in, paying close attention to Nora's story.

"They were Beowolves," corrected Ren after taking a sip from his coffee.

"DOZENS OF THEM!" she yelled while jumping to her feet.

"Two of them."

"But they were no match," she continued, "and in the end, Ren and I took them down, and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!" she finished proudly.

Ren sighed exhaustedly. "She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now," he explained.

"Pretty awesome dream," replied Album as she took a sip from her soda.

Pyrrha attracted their attention when she called her leader's name. "Jaune, are you okay?" she asked in concern.

"Huh?" he had been so distracted with fiddling with the food on his tray that he hadn't noticed the girl talking at first. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Nudar looked around at his team's trays after noticing his empty glass. Taking the empty trays, he stacked them up and grabbed his glass. "I'll take these, you guys."

"Oh, thanks… I guess." Vio was confused, until he saw Nudar making his way back to the lunch line with his empty cup not in the stack of dishes. "Oh. He's getting a refill."

"Makes sense," muttered Album. She took out her scroll and started typing something rather quickly.

"What are you always typing?" Vio asked in annoyance. "You always seem to be typing on that thing."

"I'm doing God's work," she said simply as she kept typing. His confusion only increased at that, especially when she started blushing a bit at what she was writing.

Meanwhile, Nudar was walking back to his friends after getting a refill on his soda. As he walked through the cafeteria to his table, he saw Cardin and his team cornering a rabbit-eared Faunus girl. Every time she went to leave, Cardin or one of his buddies would get in her way and stop her. As he walked up, Cardin started pulling on her ear.

"OWW!" she screamed. "Please stop!" she begged.

"See, I told you they were real," he said jokingly.

"Please," she whimpered. "Stop."

Cardin and his buddies laughed more at her sadness. As he resumed tugging, Nudar grabbed a knife from another student's plate and held it in his left hand and put his soda down on the table. Getting behind Cardin, he squeezed the larger teen's forearm with his free hand and bent it behind his back at a painful angle. "Hey Velvet," he said kindly to the Faunus girl. "How are you?"

"Nudar!" she gasped.

He pulled a bit more forcefully on Cardin's arm, making him cry out from the crippling pain he could feel down to his bones. "I couldn't help but notice Cardin here giving you trouble. I figured you could use a bit of help." With a casual look, he held the knife up to Cardin's ear. "You know, most normal people wouldn't be able to remove an ear with an average knife like this, but I'm sure someone with my kind of strength can easily do so."

"Hey!" snapped Sky as he pushed the Faunus aside. "Let him go!"

"Why?" asked the blond. "Velvet wanted you to let go and you didn't. Plus, if Cardin likes people getting their ears hurt, maybe he'd like it with his."

"No! Stop!" he begged. "Please!"

Nudar hummed thoughtfully. "Mmm… Alright." Cardin relaxed as the knife left his ear, but tensed up as it neared his family jewels. "So maybe I should help you out, mutt."

"Who are you calling mutt, asshole?!" he demanded angrily.

"You," he replied simply. "You clearly have an alpha male complex going on, so therefore you must be a dog." The knife got even closer to his pants. "And when dogs get too aggressive, the best course of action is neutering them to make them relax."

Cardin paled visibly at what Nudar was implying he do. The rest of CRDL went to lunge, but he brought the knife closer. "Not so fast," he said teasingly. "Wouldn't want this to slip and 'accidentally' make Cardin into a Carmen, would you?" They backed off at their leader's frantic look. Nudar looked back at Velvet. "So Velvet, what do you want to happen? He's your bully."

Cardin looked at her pleadingly and she seemed scared of making such a decision. "Umm… you can let him go. It's no big deal," she said hesitantly.

Nudar sighed. "Dang it. Oh well." Pulling the knife back, he released his crushing grip on Cardin's arm. The brawny boy immediately moved forward to get away from the deranged blond. He clutched his forearm, and was pretty sure he had either broken something or sprained it. "Get out of here," he ordered. "And don't let me see you harassing Velvet again or you'll have both me _and_ CFVY to deal with." He leaned forward towards them. "And I'm sure Coco and Yatsuhashi would love hearing their teammate is being bullied by a bunch of first years whose egos are too big for their own good." Seeing how serious he was, the team ran off, Cardin nursing his arm.

"You didn't have to do that," Velvet told him quickly. "They'd have gotten bored eventually and gone away."

"And what if they got worse than pulling on your ears?" asked Nudar as he picked up his soda and went to walk away. "Let me or anyone else know if they keep at it. Nobody should be made miserable for any reason." With that, he walked off and left the rabbit Faunus to her thoughts. When the teen got back to the table, his teammates were all looking at him. "What?" he asked.

Vio smirked at him. "You really live up to that name of yours, Nudar. You've got a heart of gold."

Leaf nodded. "And I heard it all. Nice work making Cardin back down like that."

Album chuckled darkly. "Captain Sleazeball definitely needed to be taken down a couple pegs. And now I don't have to put the effort into doing it myself. So thanks, partner." With that, she clapped him on the shoulder, and made him almost fall over from the force of her hit.

The other teams said nothing as they were all discussing how hard it must be to be a Faunus, momentarily forgetting Leaf was right there. Vio, however, raised an eyebrow when he thought he saw Blake's bow move a bit like Leaf's ears tended to. Blinking a bit to make sure he wasn't seeing things, he saw a lack of movement and Blake staring at him with a slightly dark emotion of sorts.

"See something you like?" she asked him. The Black heir could have sworn he heard contempt in her voice.

Seeing Yang discreetly staring at him interacting with her partner, he felt like screwing with the flirtatious blonde as payback for her harassing him. "Well, I could give you a list of things I like, Blake," he said with a smirk. "But we'd be out of school for the day by the time I finish listing all of things related to _you_."

She went wide-eyed and blushed at his statement. Yang's jaw practically dropped to the table and Weiss glared at him for saying something like that to her teammate and someone he barely knew. VNLA, however, cracked up at Vio's remark and were laughing with Nora. Ren didn't react aside from a raised eyebrow, Pyrrha was too busy looking after Jaune, and Ruby was just clueless as to what was going on.

**Later: History class**

The teams had been in Professor Oobleck's class for at least thirty minutes, and so far, the majority of VNLA had decided to get the notes they missed from the rapid-fire teacher from Leaf.

"Yes! Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as the Faunus War," Oobleck practically teleported in front of the note-covered map of Remnant, "Humankind was quite, quite _adamant_ about centralizing the Faunus population in Menagerie," he hit the board in a place Vio knew wasn't the mentioned island. He took a deep sip from his coffee before appearing in front of his desk again. "Now! While this may feel like ancient history to many of you, it is _imperative_ to remember that these are relatively recent events." As he spoke, he kept dashing around the front of the room. "Why, the… repercussions of the uprising can _still_ be seen to this day." Another sip of coffee… or whatever it was he kept drinking that made him so hyper. "Now, have any of you been subjugated or discriminated against because of your Faunus heritage?"

Nudar looked over at where Velvet was sitting (she was apparently being made to take the course a second time) and noticed she wasn't going to raise her hand at first. After Leaf and another boy did, she hesitantly raised her own.

"Dreadful, simply dreadful!" he stated while bouncing on his toes. "Remember students. It is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence!" Another sip. "I mean- I mean- I mean, look at what happened to the White Fang!" Leaf tensed up at the mention of the group, remembering how drastically the group had changed. "NOW! Which one of you young scholars can tell me what _many_ theorists believe to be the turning point in the third year of the war?"

Weiss and Vio shot their hands up in response, so Oobleck pointed to Weiss. "The battle at Fort Castle," she answered proudly.

"Precisely!" he exclaimed while hitting his hands on his desk in excitement. "And, who can tell me the advantage that the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?" At that moment, Cardin flicked a paper football at the sleeping Jaune's neck. In his surprise, Jaune's hand looked like it had gone up, and Oobleck noticed it. "Mr. Arc!" he yelled excitedly. "Finally contributing to class! This is excellent, EXCELLENT! What is the answer?!"

"Umm… Uh… The answer… The advantage… of the Faunus… had over…" As he continued in a similar fashion, he looked at Pyrrha, who was trying to pantomime the answer to him from across the room. When she covered her eyes with her hands like they were binoculars, he shouted what it looked like she was trying to say. "Uh… binoculars!" he said kind of proudly. Everyone except Pyrrha started laughing at the boy's answer and how confident he sounded about it.

After an unusually long slurp from his caffeine supply, he sped to the board. "Very funny, Mr. Arc," he said loudly and sarcastically. "Cardin, perhaps you would care to share your thoughts on the subject?"

Cardin leaned back in his seat and propped his feet up on the desk. "Well, I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier." Leaf snapped his pencil in half at Cardin's remark and Nudar started muttering about finding surgical tools.

"You're not the most open-minded on individuals, are you, Cardin?" asked Pyrrha.

"What? You got a problem?" he demanded.

"No," she replied while sitting back down next to Blake. "I have the answer," she told the teacher. "It's night vision. Many Faunus are known to have nearly perfect vision in the dark." Cardin started grumbling about Pyrrha showing him up.

"General Lagune was young, and made the foolish mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep," added Blake. "His massive army was outmatched, and the general was captured."

"It also doesn't help that the general was so bigoted he believed that should the Faunus try to fight back, the fact that his army was entirely made up of humans would guarantee his victory," commented Nudar. He then looked over at Cardin with a sick grin. "Sort of like the leader of Team CRDL over there."

A couple kids chuckled at that, and Cardin stood up with his fists balled as he got ready to attack Nudar. "Mr. Winchester, please take your seat," sighed the teacher. Jaune was laughing to himself about Cardin finally getting told off by a teacher, when Oobleck appeared in front of him. "You _and_ Mr. Arc can both see me after class for additional readings." The light-hearted mood was killed at that, and Jaune groaned. "Now, MOVING ON!"

The lesson continued on with a dull and uncheerful tone. When the lesson was over, the teams went their separate ways. VNLA reached their dorm room, but Album and Nudar had other plans. Album quickly ducked behind her privacy curtain and Nudar quickly changed into his casual clothes despite Vio yelling at him about doing so outside the bathroom. When the white-haired girl came out, she had donned her own battle clothes. "Don't wait up," she told them as she pocketed her scroll.

"Where are you two going?" asked Vio with a raised eyebrow. "Got a date planned?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Haha, fearless leader," she replied sarcastically. "No. Goldie and I have something fun planned. So no ruining our fun."

"Later guys," he said quickly as the two bolted out the door.

As soon as it slammed, Vio looked at Leaf. "So, what now?"

Leaf shrugged. "I dunno. Want to play some chess?"

Outside the room, Nudar and Album were speed-walking down the hallway. "So, I get the target and you get the paintball guns?" he asked.

"Yeah. You'll probably have the best luck with getting the target," she replied with a nod. "I'll get the guns. Here," she handed him a small bottle of sandy-yellow dust. "I swiped this from Weiss' stuff when Team RWBY wasn't in their room. I did my research, and chucking this on the ground should have the effect of a flashbang grenade. Grab the subject while he's stunned."

"Sweet," he said eagerly. He pocketed the vial of dust and nodded to her. "Okay, I'll go retrieve Subject C, you get the gear. Meet up in 10?"

"Yup." Reaching the door to the dorms, the two split up and ran off to get what they were planning on. Nudar ran through the courtyards until he saw Cardin tearing into his team for not backing him up in Oobleck's class. Seeing them, he bolted into cover behind some bushes.

"Target spotted," he said to himself. He pulled the vial out of his hand and got ready to throw it.

Meanwhile, Cardin was yelling at his partners. "Seriously, you guys are unbelievable!" he yelled. "I get picked on by those dumb bitches, and yet you go ahead and just sit by like that!" He shoved Sky into Dove and Russel. "Seriously, what a team," he muttered.

"Let's go," whispered Nudar. He pegged the vial at the ground in front of Team CRDL. As he did so, he gave in to an urge from reading his comics. "I'M A NINJA!" He covered his eyes until the light died down a bit, and then leapt out and grabbed Cardin from behind, squeezing the base of his neck and covering his nose to knock him out. As the rest of CRDL fell over, stunned and/or temporarily knocked out, he dragged the now unconscious Cardin away towards the dorms and under the tree the two had agreed to meet up under.

He had to wait a couple minutes for his co-conspirator, and had to knock Cardin out a second time to keep him down. Eventually though, she showed up with a couple of paintball guns slung over her shoulder and several things of ammunition. "Was he any trouble?" she asked while motioning to Cardin.

"Not really. He and CRDL went down pretty easily," replied the blond teen. He turned and started climbing up the tree. "Throw me Cardin when I get up there. We've got a narrow window of opportunity."

"Emphasis on the window," she muttered as she put down the guns. When Nudar got up to the ledge in front of the window, she grabbed Cardin under the arms and got ready to throw him. "Ready?" she called up to him.

"Yup, throw him on up!" he replied. She practically lobbed the heavy teen up to her partner, who managed to grab on to Cardin and pull him up on to the window ledge. Once Cardin was propped up, he jumped down to the ground and landed with a roll.

"Here you go," she told him as she handed him his gun, his being a bronze-like yellow in color and her's being silver in color. She took aim as he loaded his gun. "Let the fun begin." She delivered a couple of greyish paint shots to Cardin's chest, the force of which woke him up.

"What the-?" He looked down at Album and Nudar who were pointing their paintball guns at him. "What the hell are you doing?!" he yelled angrily and out of fear.

"We were bored," answered the girl as she shot at him. He scrambled to his feet to avoid being hit. "And given your track record today, we figured we'd teach you a lesson in humility."

"That and we wanted to blow off some steam," added Nudar as he shot a couple of intentionally missed yellow shots to make Cardin jumpy. "But mostly cuz we were bored."

"You're crazy!" he yelled at them.

"And we've heard that one plenty of times by now," Album said in a bored tone. "Now get ready to keep moving."

The teammates resumed shooting paintballs at Cardin, who was darting back and forth on the narrow ledge to avoid getting hit. "Man, this is more fun than I thought it would be," commented Nudar.

"I know," Album said happily. She lowered her gun a bit. "Hey Cardin, move back and forth like one of those ducks at the carnival!" She shot a couple more times at him, but he crouched down, which led to the window getting more paint on it. "No, don't duck!" she snapped. "That makes you harder to hit!"

"You know, this has got to be the best game since Grifball," commented Nudar. "Speaking of which, do you think Vio would be willing to let us play some time? I know they have a court down in Vale."

"Maybe," she replied as she kept taking shots at Cardin. "We'd need to ask him about it." The two kept shooting at Cardin for several hours before they ran out of ammo and amusement. By that point, the leader of Team CRDL was exhausted and could barely run from the two deranged teens, which led to them hitting him repeatedly. It was now dark out, and the three had definitely missed dinner.

"Alright, I'm done," said Nudar as he shouldered the paintball gun.

"Same," replied Album after she shot Cardin in his chest a couple more times. "Thanks, Cardin," she called up to him. "Just hang on up there, I'm sure your teammates will show up eventually to let you back in." He could only nod back weakly to her.

"Let's go," she told the blond boy. The two left Cardin by himself, and he tried catching his breath and his energy. However, that was when he heard Jaune tell Pyrrha something _extremely_ interesting.

_Maybe this wasn't such a total waste after all,_ he thought to himself as he used what strength he had left to climb to the roof after Pyrrha had left.

**I know I seem to have this thing against Cardin, but it is not unfounded. I just think he's that much of a dick. I mean, he abused Velvet, blackmailed Jaune, and wanted to kill Pyrrha with Rapier Wasps just for showing him up. And yet for some reason, people keep shipping him and CRDL with Velvet. Also who got the Red vs Blue reference there? I just couldn't help since both are series done by Rooster Teeth. Expect a bit more on the subject of Grifball at a later date. Later!**


	10. Forever Fall

**You know which OCs are made by who. Read and review!**

**Forever Fall**

"Absolutely not," Vio told Album and Nudar with a tone that said he was done with the discussion. The three were walking back from the school's workshop where he had been performing routine maintenance on Black Bolt.

"C'mon," whined Nudar. "Please?!"

"I'm not wasting my money on equipment and rental fees for a stadium just so you two can play Grifball against one another!" he snapped angrily at them

"It won't be just us," Album said casually. "We were thinking of including you, Leaf, RWBY, and JNPR as well." She got in front of him with her hands clasped together and gave him her best puppy-dog eyes. "Please?" she begged him.

He sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "If I say no, you're just going to keep doing this, aren't you?" The two nodded as Nudar joined his partner in giving him puppy-dog eyes. "Fine," he sighed. "I'll CONSIDER your offer of finding a stadium in Vale that would let us play with our friends."

"Thanks Vio!" the two chimed happy as could be as they bolted past him to their room.

"I feel duped!" he yelled at their retreating forms. He heard laughter and a door slam, and sighed at how immature his two teammates could be. He walked around the corner, and found Ruby in her pajamas walking away from the communal bathroom. "Hey Ruby. What's up?"

The younger girl smiled at her fellow leader as she fell in pace with him. "Hey Vio. Just getting ready for bed. Yang was showering and taking forever, so I decided to shower in the morning."

"Makes sense," nodded Vio. "And I'm sure with all that hair, Yang's bound to take a bit longer."

Ruby giggled. "Yeah. You wouldn't believe how many times we fought over who got the shower first back home."

The two shared a laugh. As they rounded the corner to their hallway, they saw Jaune staring at the ground in front of JNPR's door, not trying to go in. "Hey Jaune," Ruby said to get his attention.

The scraggly blond jumped in shock at the voice, and turned to see the owner and her companion. "Oh, Ruby, Vio. Hey." He said the second part slightly sadly.

"Lock yourself out of your room again?" asked Vio.

"No, no," he replied with a chuckle. He held up his scroll. "It's right here." He chuckled a bit in a nervous tone.

"What's wrong?" Vio asked in concern.

He sighed. "I… I messed up. I did something I shouldn't have, and now… Cardin's got me on a leash, and Pyrrha won't even talk to me." He sighed as his fellow leaders looked at him in concern. "I'm starting to think coming to this school was a bad idea." Leaning against the door, he slid down to the floor. "I'm a failure."

There was a pause as he wallowed in his own self-pity. During which, the two other leaders shared a look before Ruby looked down at him. "Nope."

"No?" He looked at her in shock.

"Nope." She walked closer to him. "You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure."

"But, what if I'm a failure at being a leader?" he asked.

Vio shook his head. "It'd still be no."

The two sat down on either side of him. "You know, you guys aren't the easiest to talk to about this."

"Nope," they said at the same time, making Ruby giggle.

"Jaune, you may have been a failure as a kid," she said, noticing him groan and slide down further. "And you might have been a failure the first day we met." He slid down again. "But, you can't be one now. You know why?"

"Uh… Because-"

"Because it's not just about you anymore," she said while cutting him off. She even pointed at him to make her point.

"You've got a team, and they all depend on you being their leader," explained Vio. "Nora, Ren, even Pyrrha all need you to be their leader. Same with Team RWBY and VNLA. If we fail, we'll just bring them down too." Jaune got even gloomier at the Black heir's words.

Ruy stood up. "We need to put our teammates first, and ourselves second," she told him with her hands on her hips. "Your team deserves a leader Jaune. And I think that could be you." She pulled open her room's door. "Have a good night," she said with a wave.

Vio got up with a grunt and went to walk to his room. "Hey Jaune, don't get too bent out of shape, alright? It's natural to make mistakes, even for a leader." With that, he went to his door and walked in. Jaune stared after the Black Family heir and thought back on what he had said. He went to get up, but jumped in shock when he heard a thump from VNLA's door followed by yelling that sounded like Vio and laughter from Nudar and Album. A moment later, Leaf walked out in his sweatpants and baggy t-shirt and stood there patiently while Vio could be heard attacking his teammates. As Leaf stood there and Jaune went to get back into his room, his Scroll went off with a message from Cardin. He went wide-eyed at the message saying to get Rapier Wasps for the armored leader, but his attention was diverted when Weiss stormed out of her room in her nightgown.

-POV shift-

To say Weiss Schnee was annoyed would have been as big an understatement as saying there was a small chunk in Remnant's moon. Storming out of Team RWBY's room, despite the others telling her to leave VNLA alone, she stomped right up to the door, only to find the Faunus boy. "Hello… Leaf, was it?"

The green-themed Faunus nodded. "Hello Weiss. How have you been? Lovely night, isn't it?"

She raised a perfectly kept eyebrow at the boy's politeness, but disregarded it to focus on the matter at hand. "Do you realize what time it is?" she said pointedly.

"Um… Sometime at night. I don't have my Braille alarm clock out here and I can't really use watches since I can't see." To illustrate his point, he pulled up his glasses to show her his milky white eyes. _No, they're more like snow,_ she thought to herself. Then she stopped herself. _WHERE IS THAT COMING FROM?!_

"Are you alright, Weiss?" he asked her in concern. "Your body temperature and heart rate increased suddenly."

She blinked a couple times, and realized her face was flushed. _Why am I blushing around this Faunus?_ "I'm fine, Leaf," she told him. "Now could you please tell your teammates-" Someone slammed into the door inside the room.

"DAMMIT ALBUM!" yelled Vio as she laughed insanely.

"To keep it down," she growled. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

He reached over and turned the door knob. "Tell them yourself. For once they refused to listen to me." When he opened the door with a bow, the still flushed heiress pushed past him.

After entering, she saw the beds were thrown into a state of horrifying disarray, and Vio (still in his combat outfit) was chasing the two heavy hitters of his team with a text book. Album and Nudar stopped short when they saw Weiss glaring at them, and their sudden stop lead to Vio knocking them over when he ran into them. "You three are so dead."

-Next Door-

The three remaining members of Team RWBY continued on with what they were doing. RWBY was brushing her teeth in the bathroom, so Blake and Yang were on their bunks. The blonde, however, was on Blake's bed for some reason as she towel-dried her hair. "Hey Blake, what do you think of Vio?"

Blake looked up from her book and at her partner in curiosity. "What does it matter?"

"Just answer the question," she said with a smirk as she pushed the black-haired girl's shoulder playfully.

"I think he's a nice guy," replied Blake as she pushed Yang's hand aside. "He treats everyone with respect unless they prove they don't deserve it, and he's nothing like the stuck-up heir I'd expect him to be." She smiled. "So yeah, I think he's pretty nice."

"Dammit," muttered Yang.

"Why?" asked Blake.

"Because I was _really_ hoping I was the only one trying to be his girlfriend," explained Yang.

Blake's face lit up in embarrassment. "WHAT?! Yang, I'm not trying to get a boyfriend, I'm trying to become a Huntress. Relationships are the last thing on my mind."

Yang looked at her cautiously. "Uh huh. That's what they all say. But need I remind you of how Vio was shamelessly flirting with you the other day?"

"It was one time!" snapped Blake. "And I'm sure that-" There was a loud crash from VNLA's room, followed by the screams of Nudar, Album, and Vio, and Weiss yelling at the three in absolute fury. "I'm sure that he doesn't have feelings for me," she finished when the screams had quieted down.

"Then why does he keep rejecting me?"

"Who keeps rejecting you?" asked Ruby as she walked in from the bathroom.

"Vio!" snapped Yang. "Every time I try using the ol' Yang Charm, he shoots me down!"

"Oh," replied Ruby with a confused nod. "So, why are you yelling at Blake about it?"

"Because she's trying to steal him from me!"

"I am not!"

Ruby watched as the two older girls went back and forth in this manner, and felt the strong urge to giggle at how childish they were acting. Their door was then kicked open as Weiss stormed in. The arguing partners paused at her slamming the door open and froze at her glare. "I just beat up Vio, Nudar, and Album with nothing but my glyphs for making too much noise. Do you really want me to repeat my demonstration of my glyphs on you two?" The now scared girls shook their heads. "Good." With that, she marched over to her bed and got under the covers. "Good night." Not wanting to invoke her anger any further, the other three members of Team RWBY got to their beds with Ruby turning off the desk light.

-**Next Day: At the Forever Fall-**

The group of first years walked through the red leafed forest as Professor Goodwitch led them to their destination. The teens from VNLA listened as she explained they were supposed to be collecting tree sap, and had to break into groups to collect one jar each. So, VNLA grouped up together and went off with four jars.

It took a couple minutes, but after they found a good tree and Nudar punched the spigot in without breaking it, they sat around as the cleaver-wielder filled the group's first jar. As they sat around, Leaf decided to break the silence. "So, what exactly did Weiss do to you guys? I came back in and you were all grumbling about how long it would take for your Auras to heal you all and kept gasping in pain. Not to mention all the crashes I kept hearing."

"Basically, she trashed us," Album told him fearfully with a shudder before going to fill her jar as Nudar finished.

"Weiss' Semblance is Glyphs. She uses them for a variety of combat purposes, such as propulsion, temporary paralysis, or Dust enhancing," explained Vio. Getting a nod of understanding from his partner, he continued. "That being said, she only had her Semblance to use last night. So she catapulted us all over our room using them like she never had before." Vio shuddered. "I've seen Weiss when she was angry, but that was something even I've never borne witness to." He looked over at Album and saw she had finished filling her jar with sap. He quickly took her place as Leaf sat there thinking over what Vio had told him.

"Hey Vio, what's up with you and Yang?" asked Album. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow and she sighed. "On the ride here in the Bulldog, Yang asked me if I had feelings for you or if I was trying to be your girlfriend. She seemed really serious about it, and it took a bit of effort to explain I wasn't interested."

"Huh. Weird." He screwed on the lid to his jar before filling one for Leaf. "There's nothing going on between us, unless she thinks there is." He thought for a moment. "Maybe she's bent out of shape after I made that flirtatious comment to Blake. But why would she be upset about that?"

Nudar and Album shared a look of 'really?'. "Dude, I think Yang's got a huge crush on you," Nudar told him like his leader was crazy.

"Well obviously," replied the purple-themed teen with a roll of his eyes. "But why would she be bothered?"

"I mean, she's _really_ into you," emphasized the blond. "She might be scared you'll choose someone else."

"Really?" he asked in surprise, so much so that he almost over-filled Leaf's jar.

"REALLY?!" yelled Album. "You're that dense that you didn't notice she's obsessed with you?! I'm asexual and I still noticed!" Nudar looked at her weirdly, but didn't ask.

"Well sorry, but I tend to ignore flirting, especially after how much of it I dealt with at White Castle and with Weiss' sister Winter," he replied slightly nervously.

"Idiot," muttered Album. "She's crushing on you big time, and your little comment to Blake probably set her on the war path to win your heart." She glared at the now nervous leader. "So, what exactly do you think of Yang Xiao Long?"

"Shouldn't we be getting back to Goodwitch?"

"SIT!" she yelled. He complied and sat down on a rock out of fear of provoking the hammer-wielder's wrath. "Now talk. What do you think of her?"

"Well, she's certainly attractive," he started.

"Other than her jigglies and her body," snapped the whitette. The other two boys decided to lounge about as their leader was interrogated.

"I mean aside from her feminine charms," he replied. "She tries to be upbeat about everything unless she's pissed off, she tries to be friends unless she knows she can't stand someone." He put a hand to his chin. "Other than that, she seems decent enough. My only complaint is how she flirts with me so much."

"So other than the flirting thing, you would totally date her?" asked Nudar as he decided to enter the conversation.

"Yes?" Vio said uncertainly.

"Then why not ask her out?!" demanded the blond. "It would save all of us from this headache inducing love drama!"

"Because I'm not sure I should!" snapped Vio. He took a breath. "I was thinking about how Yang is a great person that I wouldn't mind be in a relationship with, but then I started realizing how a lot of the things that Yang is lacking in are things I like about _Blake_. And then…" he looked down at the ground and shook his head with a sigh. "I just start getting confused."

"So wait," interrupted Leaf. "You mean to tell me you have feelings for both Yang _and_ Blake?" He shook his head. "Geez Vio, you're in one heck of a mess."

"Tell me about it," he muttered. He brushed his hair back and went to pick up his and Leaf's jars of sap. "Look, can we just drop it? Let's just get these jars back to Goodwitch."

"Fine," agreed Nudar. He helped Vio by grabbing the other two jars and following him. "You guys coming?" he asked Leaf and Album.

"We'll be along soon," she told him. After the two guys left, she looked over to a nearby tree. "Does that answer your question?"

Yang stepped out from behind said tree with a blush and a jar in her hand. "Wow… he really meant that?" she asked.

"Yes," Leaf replied with a nod. "He had an even pulse and didn't give any signs of lying to us. So he most likely does have feelings for both you and Blake…who is doing a terrible job of hiding from me!" he loudly yelled at the opposite end of the clearing.

She stepped out looking a bit flustered both from what she had heard and that the Bat Faunus had known she was there the entire time. She was also holding a jar of the pinkish sap. "Sorry, but when Yang ran off on me, I followed to see what was going on." She looked in the direction Vio had gone. "Although now…"

"Dibs!" Yang called quickly. "I'm not letting you get him, Blake."

"Since when were we fighting over Vio?" demanded the black haired girl.

"Why not let him decide?" asked Leaf. He then shivered despite not being able to see the girls glaring at him.

"Didn't you hear him?" asked Album. "He can't decide between the two of them. So therefore, we need to do it for him." As she said this, she put a finger in the air, as if she were explaining something like a genius.

"I repeat, dibs."

"You know what, I give up," sighed Blake with a defeated tone. "If this how you're going to act, then I'm going to try and get him for myself!" With that, she ran off in the direction Vio had gone.

"Oh no you don't!" Yang quickly ran off after her partner.

As soon as the two left, Album's Scroll went off. "Hello?" she asked as she answered the call.

"_ALBUM!"_ yelled Vio on the other end. _"Where the hell are you and Leaf? Goodwitch won't let us hand in the other half of our jars until you two are here!"_

"On our way, Vio," she told him with a roll of her eyes. "We'll be there in a few."

"_Well hurry,"_ he muttered before hanging up.

As the two walked along, Leaf thought of something. "Hey, should we tell Vio that Yang and Blake are actually going to be competing for him as a boyfriend?"

"Nope," she replied. "I just want to watch the chaos from those two fighting unfold."

Leaf nodded at the white-haired girl's reasoning, and figured Nudar would support her in it. He then turned towards her again. "Wait, isn't polygamy legal in Vale?"

She shrugged. "It's actually legal in all of the kingdoms, even Atlas, and they're the most intolerant of the four kingdoms. It's kinda like homosexuality; it's legal, but some people just aren't fans of it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are we going to tell the girls they can _both_ date Vio?"

"Nope." She grinned despite his lack of sight. "Again, I want to see the chaos unfold as a result."

"So, we're not going to do anything about Vio's love life?"

"Not a thing. We've done plenty for it. Now shut up, we're here."

Sure enough, the two had arrived at the rendezvous point. Vio looked like he was about to call someone, Jaune looked shaken up, and a sap-covered Cardin was ignoring his team. Interestingly enough, Pyrrha, Ruby, and Weiss were fussing over Jaune, and Yang and Blake seemed intent to stay close to Vio. Vio noticed the two arriving and marched over to them. "Finally! Cardin and Jaune were attacked by Grimm, and Goodwitch started panicking when Blake and Yang ran in and said you should be right behind them."

"Sorry we didn't know," snapped Album.

"We had some stuff to take care of," added Leaf.

Vio looked at them weirdly. "You two aren't an item now, are you?"

"No!" they replied, with Album replying quickly with a look of horror at that kind of suggestion and Leaf after a moment with a look of confusion.

"Just asking-"

"Well don't ask," snapped Album.

Goodwitch walked over to them. "Alright, you two are here, so everyone is accounted for. Since everyone was able to complete the assignment, we'll be heading out now." She turned to the others. "The other teams are already onboard the Bulldog. Everyone else on so we can leave!"

**Author's Note: So yeah, sorry this took so long to post. I've been busy with my senior year, and don't always have the time to write. That shouldn't be as much of a problem anymore though since Senior Project is done and over with. Additionally, this was the start of the "awkward love polygon" mentioned in the summary. Reviews are appreciated, and the bit with Grifball is in the near future, so you've got that to look forward to. So, until next time!**


	11. During The Stray

**During The Stray**

The sun was shining brightly down on the city of Vale. Walking down its streets was the entirety of Team VNLA, with their leader trailing behind them. The group had originally planned to walk around with Team RWBY, but had decided to go to the Grifball Court in town so Vio could rent it out for some point during the following weekend so they could play with their friends like he had agreed to. As they walked along the street, Vio let out a pitiful sob.

"Vio, what the hell's your problem?" demanded Album after he whined in misery.

"You two are my problem," he whined. "You're gonna make my father take away my credit card."

"What makes you say that?" asked Nudar. Like Album, he acted completely carefree about their (extremely rich) friend and teammate paying for sixteen people (Nudar had extended the invitation to Team CFVY so they'd have an even number of teams involved).

"Because!" he snapped at them. "I have a habit of never needing to use more than half of my monthly allowance through my card, but that stadium took up that half, and then all the gear I needed to rent took up another fourth!" He ran in front of them. "I just spent more money than I usually do, and it's because you two guilted me into it!"

"Wait," Album said raising her hands up to make him stop. "You mean to tell me, that your monthly allowance is so much Lien that three fourths of it is renting a Grifball stadium _and _sixteen players worth of gear?!" She and Nudar shared a look. "Hey Vio, can I-"

"NO!" he yelled at her. "I'm your leader, NOT your personal bank card! I don't want to wind up being responsible for paying for you two doing God knows what simply because you feel like it!"

"He's got a point," added Leaf. "Did you guys even stop to think about how much all that was going to cost? I get it that Vio is from an incredibly rich family, but we shouldn't take advantage of it like that."

"Nobody asked for your opinion, Leaf," Album commented dryly. As she said this, a couple of police officers ran up to them.

"He kids, did you see a Faunus around here?" asked the one with a full chin beard.

They all stared blankly at him before gesturing to Leaf. "Yeah, we're hanging out with one," commented Nudar.

The other officer stepped forward. "No, different Faunus. This one has blonde hair, a monkey tail, an open shirt, and rolled up jeans. You see anyone like that around here?"

"Sorry, but no. We haven't," replied Vio.

The bearded one fixed Leaf with a glare. "What about you, Foxy?"

"I'm a bat," he replied.

"Don't get snappy with us!" snapped the second officer. "Maybe that other Faunus is an accomplice of yours? And you just don't want your White Fang Wannabe partner to pay for what you're planning to do?" As a means of intimidation, he rested his hand on his Dust Revolver.

The three humans drew their weapons. "Back off," demanded Vio. "Leaf's been with us this entire time, and I'm pretty sure the press would _love_ to find out that not only did two cops get beaten up by first year students, but that they were beaten up because they were making racist comments to an innocent Faunus."

The cops looked around, and realized people were pointing at them, and a couple people were taking videos on their Scrolls or talking quietly among themselves. The two officers hesitated, but backed off. "Just stay out of trouble," warned the first one. "And make sure your Faunus friend doesn't get any ideas." After the two had left, the three sheathed their weapons.

"You guys didn't have to do that," said Leaf.

"We wanted to," muttered Nudar as he shouldered his sword. "You're our friend, and I can't stand racism or any form of intolerance."

"And I don't think it's right," added Vio. He had a sour look on his face. "Just because of the White Fang, the Faunus are in a worse light than ever before. I may respect the White Fang for their goal, but their methods hardly justify that." His hands were clenched tightly into fists. "It's disgusting to judge everyone of a group for the mistakes of a select few."

"Well, you guys certainly seem like the right crowd," came a playful voice from above. The four looked up and saw a teen matching the description they had been given hanging from a window grate by his tail.

"Wow, as soon as they leave," muttered Album.

The boy dropped down and landed on his feet. "It was pretty cool how you guys chased of those cops like that. I mean, sure, I was a stowaway on a ship from Vacuo, but I was just coming here in advance to scope out the competition."

"So that's why the authorities are after you," deadpanned Vio. "So," he crossed his arms, "who are you, exactly?"

The blond Faunus smiled and pointed a thumb at himself. "The name's Sun Wukong, and I'm a Huntsman in training."

"Let me guess, you're here for the festival too?" asked Leaf.

"Yup. My team sent me on ahead to see what they'd be up against here." The way he said that made it sound like he was proud of himself, but he then realized something. "And, I wasn't supposed to tell you that…" He then started panicking. "Oh man… Scarlet is gonna kill me…"

Leaf chuckled at him. "Don't worry, we won't tell anyone." He extended a hand to Sun. "I'm Leaf."

Album put her hands in her pockets. "I'm Album White."

Nudar extended a hand with a huge grin. "Nudar Athenos."

Vio was the last. "Vio Black," he said while extending his own hand.

Sun went bug eyed and backed away from him. "Wait, _Black?_ As in, the most legendary military family from Atlas? The one that's infamous for its anti-Faunus policies?"

The other three looked at Vio in shock, but he sighed. "You're probably thinking of how much of a racist my father and his family have been towards the Faunus. I however, want everybody to be treated equally, regardless of whether their human or Faunus."

The Faunus boy studied him cautiously before grinning again and giving him a handshake like he had for the other two boys. "Well, nice to meet you guys. I take it you're a team?"

Vio nodded. "Yup. I'm the leader of our group of misfits. Officially known as Team VNLA."

"Hey, I've got a question," he told them as the group of now five walked in a direction the two cops wouldn't go. "I saw this gorgeous Faunus girl when I got off the ship from Mistral. Do you guys know who she is?"

"Faunus girl?" asked Vio, none of them noticing how panicked Leaf looked. "I didn't realize Velvet and CFVY were hanging out in town today."

Nudar looked at him. "Did this Faunus girl have brown hair and a pair of rabbit ears on her head?"

Sun looked at them in confusion. "Um… No. She had a pale, olive-like complexion, these amazing golden eyes, a cool black and white ensemble, long black hair, and a bow on her head."

"Well, that sounds like our friend Blake," Vio said while looking at him strangely. "But she's not a Faunus."

"Besides, Vio's got the hots for her," added Album. She stuck her tongue out at her leader when he gave her a death glare.

"No, she's a Faunus," Sun replied awkwardly. "I'm positive she is."

"She isn't," insisted Nudar. He looked at their own Faunus. "Right Leaf?"

The bat Faunus stayed silent and nervously fidgeted with his hands. "Leaf?" asked Vio. "You mean…"

The green teen nodded. "How do you think she and I knew each other?" he asked rhetorically with a bit of a defeated tone. "We grew up together before my family was forced to move when the White Fang started having violent members."

"But how could she hide being a Faunus from us?" asked Album in confusion. She looked at her partner, but he shrugged at her.

Vio's eyes widened as he realized something. "Her bow," he said softly, but the others had all heard him. "I saw it move the day I flirted with her. She must use it to hide her Faunus ears." He looked at Leaf for confirmation and got an affirmative nod from his partner.

"But why hide it?" wondered Album.

"Yeah, I mean, we all like Leaf, and he's a Faunus," commented Nudar.

"Um… You guys do realize I've been dealing with racism against the Faunus since I was left in that orphanage seven years ago, right?" asked Leaf. "I've faced a hell of a lot of racism, of course, I can't really hide these," he said while gesturing to his ears.

"But still," commented Album. "Why hide it from her friends?"

"Weiss," answered Vio. "She's probably scared to tell the rest of Team RWBY considering she works with Weiss." He looked at the other four teens who had stopped around him and sighed. "The Schnee Dust Company has been a target by Faunus radicalists since Weiss' grandfather really got the company off the ground, and more so during the last five years by the White Fang. Because of that, Weiss' father raised her and Winter with extreme racial prejudices, even for Atlesians. So, she thinks all Faunus have the potential to be White Fang agents. Why do you think she freaked out when Leaf held her during initiation a couple months ago?"

"I thought it was out of embarrassment or the fact that she was the Schnee heiress being held by a common person," noted Leaf. "But that would explain why she tries to avoid spending time with me."

"Damn, I knew she was cold, but that's whole new level," muttered Album. "Now I get why Faunus hate me until I explain I just look like Weiss Schnee."

"So… You said Vio had a thing for her?" Sun asked uncertainly.

Vio glared at Album again but nodded. "Yes, I'm afraid I already have feelings for Blake, and she has started to return said feelings for some reason," he explained to the teen. He didn't notice Alum grin at the mention of her efforts to mess with his love life.

Sun groaned. "Dang it. And here I was hoping I'd be able to get a smoking hot Valesian Faunus girlfriend." He straightened up. "So then, what were you guys up to before I joined you?"

"Oh yes, that's right," Vio said in a tone of realization. He then smacked Nudar upside the head and punched Album on the arm. "That's for nearly maxing out my card!" he yelled at them.

"You're rich!" snapped Album as she rubbed her arm. "Why do you care so much?!"

"It's the principle!" he snapped back.

Sun started laughing. "Wow, you guys are something else." He looked around at the four teens. "So… did you guys already eat lunch?" he asked them. "There wasn't exactly a lot to eat on the ship I stowed away on."

Nudar and Album looked at their leader expectantly, and he sighed. "Fine, since I bet none of you brought money."

"I'll pay for it myself," Sun told him. "I was just wondering since I haven't eaten yet."

Vio smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you, Sun. And I'm positive my credit card thanks you as well." Sun laughed at that and lead them to a café he had seen while running.

**-That night-**

Team VNLA were relaxing around their room. Nudar was sharpening his sword, Album was writing her gay fanfiction, Leaf was trying to perfect playing "Mirror Mirror", and Vio was writing a BS letter to his father about how he had the entirety of his team wrapped around his finger. _What better way to make him think going to school in Vale was a good idea than to make myself sound like the best member of the team?_

As they enjoyed their semi-relaxing evening, Leaf groaned before pushing his piano off his lap. "I wish they'd keep it down," he muttered while looking at the wall they shared with RWBY.

"What's wrong?" asked Nudar as he looked up from his sword.

"Weiss and Blake have been fighting ever since they got back from Vale." He looked back at the wall. "From what I can make out, they're arguing over Weiss thinking all of Faunus-kind are all criminals." He sighed sadly. "It kinda makes me wonder how she thinks about me, or how she'd act about Blake's heritage."

Album laughed. "Wait a minute, are you crushing on Weiss?!" Leaf blushed and tried to find something else to pay attention to. "Oh my god, you are! Why else would you care about what she thinks of you? And you keep trying to play that song she sang! You're totally crushing on her!" She started cracking up. "Wow, our leader is crushing on Blake and Yang, and you've got a thing for Weiss! Next thing you know, Nudar is hooking up with Ruby or I'm in a reverse harem with Team CRDL!" She stopped as a horrified look crossed her face. She put a hand to her mouth and looked sick. "I think that image just made me want to hurl," she groaned.

The boys took their turn to laugh at the girl's misfortune before Leaf froze. "Oh no."

Vio, still grinning, looked at Leaf. "What?"

The group's Faunus had a horrified look on his face. "Blake just let it slip about who she really is." The group heard footsteps outside their door. "And she just ran off."

Album looked at the door in concern, everyone's mood killed. "Should we go after her?"

Leaf shook his head as he stood up. "If Blake is the same as when I grew up with her, she wouldn't like it if just anyone went after her." He walked over to the window and pushed it open. "She's probably heading outside, so I'll track her down. I'll let you guys know how it goes." With that, the Bat Faunus jumped out the window and to the ground.

Vio sighed as he put his Scroll on his nightstand. "I hope he finds her."

"Don't worry," assured Album. "Leaf can track anything. I'm positive he'll find her."

**-Outside-**

Leaf kept running as he followed Blake's scent. He was lucky she was upwind from him, so it wasn't long until he heard the sound of the fountain in Beacon's courtyard. "Blake!" he yelled.

He heard her shoes against the ground as she turned around. "Leaf? What are you doing here?"

"I heard your argument with Weiss," he explained. "I wanted to see if you were alright."

"I-" She turned from him. "Just go. You wouldn't understand."

Leaf heard another set of footsteps as a third person joined their group. "Well, I knew you'd look better without that bow," commented a familiar voice.

Leaf turned to the source of the third voice. "Hey Sun. It's about time you stopped hiding."

**Skip to Monday**

Leaf sat at the café Sun had taken the team to when they met first him. At the table with him was the Monkey Faunus himself and Blake. There was an awkward silence, especially since Blake hadn't said anything to either Faunus boy since she had run off on Friday. _Although it isn't technically running away since Sun and I told Vio and the rest of the team where she was._

"So," the black haired girl stated while breaking her silence. She looked over at Sun. "You wanted to know more about me, huh?"


	12. The Past Discussed

**Vio: me**

**Nudar: Hunter-Pyros**

**Leaf: Remvis**

**Album: anamisL1130**

**Read and Review! **

_**The Past Discussed**_

"And that's about it," finished Leaf. The team's Faunus had just finished relaying the story Blake had told him and Sun. "The scariest part is that she told me in the end that she knew I would tell you guys."

"Wow," Album said with a whistle. "I can't believe Blake had to go through all that."

"Sure makes being groomed into being a suitable heir sound like a breeze," muttered Vio.

Nudar then fixed the team's Faunus with a look. "But Leaf, how do you and Blake know each other? You explained how she was a part of the White Fang, but you didn't explain how you two met."

He let out a heavy sigh. "Well, my parents used to be key figures in the White Fang back when it was a peaceful group. They helped rally protests, led picket lines, they truly wanted the Faunus to be seen as equals to humans."

"Let me guess," interrupted Vio. "Her parents were just as into it and introduced you two to each other."

"Sorta like that," replied the Faunus. "Blake, like myself, was practically born into the White Fang. So, she and I both supported the cause of Faunus rights. And whenever our parents would have meetings to plan our next rally, Blake and I would hang out and play."

"Sounds like how Weiss and I became friends," commented the rich member of the team.

"Stop interrupting him!" snapped Album. After glaring at her leader, she spoke again. "Continue, Leaf."

"Right," he said with a nod. "Well, Blake and I were pretty close, but then she met Adam, and that's roughly the last time I saw her, because that's around the time some of the higher ups started pressing for more violent approaches towards achieving equality. When that started happening, my parents left me in that orphanage and vanished without a trace."

The other members of team VNLA were quiet after his revelation. "Dang," muttered Nudar. "My dad may have run off on me and my mom when I was a kid, but at least I still had a parent there for me." He looked at Leaf as he sat there impassive to his own story's effect. "Did anyone ever adopt you?" he asked.

Leaf sighed and shook his head. "No. Not many Faunus were interested in adopting since people would think they had stolen the kid, and the demand for orphaned Faunus boys whose eyes don't work is as low as it's ever been. Some kids were adopted, and then others would arrive in the night." He smiled weakly at them. "It's okay, though. I liked how I was able to stay there. I helped out new kids and kept order after I squashed the racism there."

"Still though, to not have parents for the last five years," commented Vio. "I mean, sure my father mostly taught me how to be the perfect heir and didn't let my mother have alone time with me for the last five years since my brother ran off, but at least they were _there._" The others 'looked' at him about the mother comment. "I'll explain later," he replied.

"Well, guess I'm the odd one out," commented Album. "I had both my parents there, and all four of my siblings there for me."

"All _four?!"_ asked Vio.

"You mean to tell us, you have four siblings," demanded Nudar.

"Yup," she replied with a nod. "There's my twin brother Neel and my three younger siblings, and they're 13, 12, and 10." She shrugged and chuckled at their looks. "My parents were _very_ active and pro-life."

"Moving on and back on topic," interjected Leaf. "Yeah, I basically haven't seen Blake in years. I hadn't even recognized her when she and I found each other on the first day here at Beacon. It wasn't until she told me who she was that I recognized her scent and voice."

"You must have been close, huh?" pried Album, realizing she might have an angle on her leader's love-life.

"We were closer to a platonic level, not the way you're probably thinking of, Album." Despite his blindness, he managed to give her a flat stare.

She snapped her fingers in annoyance at a missed opportunity. The team fell into silence after that. Ultimately, Album got to her feet with a grunt. "Well, I've got several dozen planted microphones and speakers, and a whole team of idiots to convince they're being haunted by a ghost. Later." With that, she grabbed her scroll and a headset from her bag, and then walked out of the room.

The three guys didn't need to ask to know the 'team of idiots' she mentioned was actually Team CRDL. After they began hearing screams from down the hall, Nudar stood up and walked towards the door. "I'm going down to the workshop. I'm sure it's pretty empty by now so I can work do maintenance on my sword in peace. See you guys in an hour or so." With a final wave, Nudar opened the door, which made Album's muffled laughs audible to Leaf, before walking out.

Shaking his head, Vio went over to his bag and pulled out his Remnant History text book. Flopping down on his bed, he opened up his book and started studying the Vacuan Water Wars. Leaf went to his bed and began playing on his keyboard for a bit. After about ten minutes, he pushed it off his lap. "Hey Vio, can I ask you something?"

The leader of the highly dysfunctional team looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Sure man, what is it?"

"You've been friends with Weiss for a long time, right?"

Vio shook his head and put his textbook down. "Jeez, you really know how to pick 'em," he muttered.

"Oh like you're one to talk, considering you're interested in both Blake _and_ Yang," replied the Faunus.

"Fair enough," replied the heir. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Yeah, Weiss and I have been friends since she and I were first learning how to walk. We even dated, despite how messed up I was at the time after my brother ran away."

"Wait," Leaf interrupted him quickly. "I thought you said you two didn't have those kinds of feelings for one another."

Vio let out a bark of laughter. "How do you think she and I figured that out? Of course, it was a complete disaster when she and I realized it."

"What happened?" he asked in confusion.

"Well, Weiss and I were about eleven or twelve, and Mercury had already run away-"

"Who?" interrupted the Faunus.

"My brother," clarified Vio. "Anyways, after he had ran off, I was feeling kind of bummed, and Weiss was the only person comforting me about it. My father started trying to ingrain his doctrines into me to keep me from being Mercury, and he wouldn't let my mother be alone with me for too long to avoid another Mercury incident. So, Weiss and I spent more and more time together, until one day, we decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend."

"What was it like?" asked Leaf. "Being in a relationship with Weiss, I mean."

"It was… innocent. She and I would go into Atlas and find ways to make Myrtenaster and Black Bolt more Dust Efficient, we'd go to the theater, or even just lay on her bed together and do nothing but talk while hugging." He shook his head with a smirk. "And since we were just kids, we didn't think relationships were anything more than just being happy when spending time together."

"So what changed it?" pried the green Faunus.

"Well, it was about a year after we started dating…"

_Flashback: roughly four years ago_

_Vio walked out of his family's limo as it pulled up to the Schnee Family estate. Weiss' chorus recital was apparently cancelled, and she had messaged him to come hang out at her place. As he walked up to the doors, they opened up to reveal the Black Heir's girlfriend._

"_Vio!" she yelled happily as she hugged him._

_He was caught off guard by her sudden charge and hug, he almost fell over from the force. "Wow Weiss, you feeling alright?" He couldn't put his finger on it, but something felt off about the Schnee Heiress. _

_She giggled before pulling back and smiling at him. "I'm fine, Vio. Just really happy to see you." She grabbed his arm and started pulling. "C'mon, let's go." _

_Choosing to listen to his girlfriend and host, he let her lead the way to her room. After they arrived in the primarily white room, the two laid back on the silver comforter like they tended to. She hugged his side and rested her head on his shoulder. Sighing contently, she looked up at him with happiness in her eyes. __Since when were her eyes such a clear blue?__ He smiled back and hugged her close before laying on his back again. After a moment of silence, the two began a meaningless conversation about which Dust Element was the most effective in combat._

_About thirty minutes into the conversation, Weiss stopped and looked up at him again. "Hey Vio, can I ask you something?"_

_He saw a bit of worry in her eyes (When did they become so clear?) and held her closer. "Sure. What's wrong?"_

"_Nothing's wrong, but I was wondering something." She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him. "Have you ever thought about… us?"_

_He tilted his head in confusion. "Of course I have. I think about us a lot."_

_She shook her head. "No, I mean us as a relationship." She leaned on him and smiled. "Have you ever considered doing more than snuggling, like… kissing, perhaps?" Her smile was playful, and it unnerved him how un-Weiss-like it was._

"_Weiss, are you positive you're feeling alright?" he insisted._

"_I've never felt better, Vio," she said sweetly. "Well?" she asked while leaning closer._

_He gulped nervously. He and Weiss were at a never-reached closeness, and it was making him a bit nervous. "Well, I would be lying if I said it never crossed my mind, but I've never really felt it was necessary to go there."_

"_Well, let's give it a try!" she eagerly said while leaning in again. _

"_What?!"_

"_I mean, we are dating, so let's give it a try." She raised a teasing eyebrow at him. "Unless you're too scared to do so."_

"_I'm not scared," he said quickly. "I'll… give it a try, I guess."_

_Weiss' smile seemed to brighten up but was still unnerving. "Well, pucker up." She did as she told her boyfriend and closed her eyes. As she leaned towards him, he awkwardly tried to mimic her actions and leaned towards her. As he closed his own eyes, their lips finally met. It felt nice… but extremely weird. After a few moments of contact, they separated and opened their eyes. Weiss looked ecstatic and elated from the kiss. "Wow," she gasped. "That was amazing."_

"_I guess…"_

"_You guess? Vio, didn't you feel the stars flying?!" she demanded. She climbed on top of him and pushed his shoulders down. __What's going on?! Why's she acting like this?!__ Internally, Vio was panicking from the Heiress' behavior. "Maybe another kiss will help." With that, she forcibly kissed him again. This time, though, she forced her tongue into his mouth and began battling his tongue for dominance, which wasn't hard since he wasn't fighting and was too surprised to do anything. The kiss felt even weirder, to the point of feeling wrong._

"_WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" yelled a familiar voice. Weiss pulled herself away from him and looked in terror to the door, where there was-_

"_Weiss?!" he yelled in confusion. Sure enough, there was a second Weiss standing in the doorway. "What the-?" His eyes widened and he looked at the girl holding him down. "Winter?"_

_The girl over him looked down with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. Now he realized it; Winter's eyes were a deeper blue than her sister's, and that's what had been different about her eyes. "You bitch!" yelled Weiss. She unsheathed Myrtenaster and sent a wave of Frost Dust at her sister. The two were launched off her bed. Winter recovered faster and drew her own rapier. "HOW DARE YOU?!" screamed Weiss as she launched a wave of fire. _

_Winter dove out of the way and Vio was weakly ably to block with his Semblance. In response, the other Schnee sent a wave of air at her sister. After Weiss slammed into the wall, Winter jumped over the bed and ran out of the room. Weiss shook her head as she recovered and, ignoring her dazed boyfriend, ran out of the room in pursuit of her sister. _

_Loud explosions sounded throughout the building from the doorway, and Vio just sat there dazed and confused. After a couple minutes, the girls' father, Blanc, walked in. When he saw the boy against the wall, he ran over to him. "Violerous!" He was panicking, but most likely over what Vio thought about his family. "What happened? Are you alright?!"_

"_Girls are scary," was all the dazed pre-teen could muster._

_End Flashback_

Leaf laughed at the end of his leader's story. "You seriously said that?"

Vio chuckled and shook his head. "Sure, ignore how I was almost killed by Weiss."

Leaf managed to control his laughter. "So what happened afterwards?"

"Well, Winter and Weiss gave each other the silent treatment for a couple weeks, and after an awkward two weeks, Weiss and I tried our actual first kiss as a couple. It was awkward before, during, and after, so we became 'just friends'. That, unfortunately, is around the time our parents started pressing for us to become a couple again, and when Winter decided I was free game to woo." Vio sighed. "And it is certainly a hassle trying to deal with the fallout of our failed relationship."

"So, I have no chance with her?" asked the Faunus boy.

"I never said that," replied Vio. "Look, right now, Weiss is probably all pissy because Blake was a Faunus and a former White Fang agent. Once she's done sulking and has cooled off, she'll probably forgive Blake and realize that despite being a Faunus, Blake is a great person and not like the White Fang." He gestured his hand at Leaf. "With that, she'll probably reconsider her opinions on Faunus-kind, and might notice you if you start trying to get her attention."

Leaf nodded as he thought it over. "You said 'probably' a lot," he said after a moment. "What would the opposite reaction be?"

Vio chuckled nervously. "Um… she doesn't forgive Blake, continues being a racist towards the Faunus and never gives you the time of day. But I think there's like a… 44% chance of that happening," he finished with a mumble.

"That's still a high chance."

"I know, but it's not 50%," Vio said to justify his response.

"So I should hope everything goes alright with the girls?" Leaf asked uncertainly.

"Yup," replied the Heir as he picked up his book again. "And if everything is alright with Team RWBY afterwards, you can pursue Weiss with Jaune being your only real competition."

"Unless he and Pyrrha get together," replied the blind teen.

"Jaune and Pyrrha?" Vio looked at his partner in confusion. "Why those two?"

"The body produces different reactions in different circumstances," replied the Faunus. "When Pyrrha is around Jaune, she starts getting… hormonal… and her heart rate tends to go up. Jaune shows similar signs when he's around his partner, but slightly minor ones around Weiss."

Vio hummed in thought. "You know, now that I think about it, Jaune really became interested in Weiss after she sarcastically called him cute when we met Yang and actually met Ruby."

"He's that clueless?" asked Leaf with a raised eyebrow.

"Apparently so." The two heard yelling from outside and below their window at this point, and Album came tearing into the room laughing before slamming the door shut. Once she was inside the room, she leaned against the door and fell to the round while holding her sides in laughter. "Having fun, Album?"

She kept laughing as she looked at her leader. "You know I am. I was pranking Cardick and his team with all those microphones and speakers I planted in their room- don't ask," she said quickly when Leaf went to ask her about that. "Anyways, I also planted some fishing line in there and made them think they were being haunted. I scared them so bad, Cardick tried fighting the 'ghost' with his mace and broke a bunch of stuff, and then he and his teammates jumped out the window to escape the 'ghost'." As she finished telling her story, she broke into laughter again.

"So, why were you running?" Vio asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Because they landed on Goodwitch when they all jumped out the window and I didn't want to be there when she got them up there," she said while gasping through her laughs.

Both boys started laughing a bit at that, imagining how pissed the Deputy Headmistress must have been when four armored boys landed on her. An hour later, Nudar returned and they all shared a laugh over the hammer-wielder's prank before retiring for the night. The next morning at breakfast, Weiss and Blake were talking like best friends.

**Author's Note: There you go, Season 1 is done. Sorry this took so long. I got a job recently and between that and **_**Lost**_**, I haven't really had the time to write all that much. But since my senior year of high school is pretty much over, I should have more time now. And yes, Mistletoe (Leaf X Weiss, Credit goes to Remvis) will happen. Next chapter is the semi-anticipated Grifball chapter, and the hell that entails will be hilarious. As For Album's many siblings, anamisL1130 was going on about how she wanted Album to have a brother (then drew him) and then she drew three younger siblings, and now claims the five White siblings ruined their mother's reproductive system (Her exact words were: "They wrecked their mom's vagina"). But yeah, that was the chapter, see you next time.**


	13. GRIFBALL!

_**Grifball**_

**The Wednesday after last chapter**

Teams VNLA, RWBY, and JNPR were all sitting together at lunch. Nora, Yang, Ruby, and Album were having swordfights with their forks, Ren was trying to ignore his partner dragging him in, and the others were quietly discussing Blake's secret after informing JNPR.

"So you were a Faunus the whole time?" asked Jaune.

Blake nodded, and leaned in close. "Can you not be so loud?" she snapped quietly. "I don't need everyone knowing I'm actually a Faunus."

"But that's so cool!" quietly gushed the blond. He looked at VNLA (minus Album). "How can you guys not be amazed or shocked by this?"

"We already knew," replied Nudar.

"Yeah," added Vio when he saw Jaune go wide-eyed. "Sun told us and Leaf was more or less forced into confirming Blake's secret."

"Who's this Sun you all keep mentioning?" asked Pyrrha.

"That would be me," interrupted said Faunus. He was holding a tray and ignoring the dirty looks he was shot by the occasional student.

"YOU!" yelled Weiss when she apparently recognized him.

"Yup, me," he said with a laugh. "Mind if I sit here?"

"Go right ahead," replied Vio as he and Leaf moved over so the monkey Faunus could sit with them. "So what exactly are you doing here?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm an exchange student, remember?" he asked with a laugh. "I'm here from Mistral. My partner Neptune should be here in about a week, and then Scarlet and Sage are showing up closer to the Vytal Festival."

"Oh yeah, you're supposed to be spying on the competition," said Leaf while smirking. "On your 'top secret mission'," he continued while making air-quotes on "top secret mission".

"That's right!" replied Sun with a big smile. He then opened his eyes when he realized something. "Oh man, not again," he muttered.

The other students, except Weiss, all laughed at his cluelessness. "Oh guys, since everything's all fine again, we have something to tell you all," said Nudar with a smile.

"And that would be?" asked Weiss. Much to her confusion, Vio started sulking when Nudar made his announcement.

"Our teams, plus CFVY, will be hanging out this coming weekend for something spectacular and awesome!"

Album stopped her sword fighting and joined in. "And it was all generously covered by our wonderful leader, Vio."

The purple-haired leader immediately groaned and covered his face in sadness. "My card…" he moaned pitifully.

"Um… what's wrong with him?" asked Yang, growing worried about the guy she and Blake were "fighting" over.

"We almost maxed out his monthly allowance on his credit card," replied Album in an off-hand tone.

"So that's what's wrong," muttered Weiss. She looked at her friend. "I still don't get why you insisted on a monthly limit with your card," she told him in an annoyed tone. "You are the heir to a massive fortune and the biggest weapons manufacturing company in Atlas. Why do you need a limit?"

He looked up at her with an equally annoyed expression. Something told the other teens that this wasn't the first time the two had had this argument. "Because I don't feel the need to spend or have access to excessive amounts of money. If I wanted that kind of money, I'd ask father for it."

"But it'll be your fortune! You shouldn't need permission to use it!"

"It's not mine yet!"

As the two went back and forth, the others felt like they were watching a tennis match with how the two went back and forth. Ultimately, their argument was interrupted when Blake cleared her throat.

"If you ask me," she said while the two turned to her for interrupting their argument, "it's a good thing Vio doesn't take advantage of his fortune. It shows he's not vain about being rich."

Vio shot his oldest friend a smug look. "See? Blake agrees with me!"

"Yes, well Blake li- MMPH!" The Faunus quickly covered the rich girl's mouth, her cheeks turning red.

"No need to broadcast it to the world." She said this so quietly that only Weiss (and naturally Leaf) could hear her.

"What was she-"

"Don't ask," snapped the black-haired girl. Vio held his hands up in surrender at the girl's vicious stare.

"So," began Ruby, trying to put the conversation back on track, "what exactly is it we'll be doing?"

"It's a surprise~!" Album said in a sing-song voice.

"Can I join in?" asked Sun, reminding the others he was there.

"Sorry Sun," apologized Vio. "I only paid for sixteen people."

"Oh." Sun seemed to deflate a bit at that.

"Don't worry," said Leaf as he patted the other Faunus on the back. "Maybe next time we all do something, we'll invite you along."

The monkey Faunus grinned and nodded. "Yeah! Sounds great."

**Saturday**

"Where are they?" muttered Vio. Team VNLA was waiting at the air-docks for the other three teams that would be joining them. He checked his Scroll again for the fifth time in three minutes. "They should be here by now."

Album hummed in thought. "Well, Ruby and Yang might have overslept like they tend to do on weekends, Jaune probably somehow locked Team JNPR _inside _their room, and I dunno about CFVY." She then noticed her partner staring at her in fear. "What?" she asked him in annoyance.

"How do you know that stuff about Team RWBY and can assume that about JNPR?" he asked her fearfully.

"Did you really think CRDL's room is the only one I bugged?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

Vio pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Remind me to buy an EMP generator to clear out the room."

"A what?" asked Nudar in confusion.

"An EMP," replied Vio. "It's a device that wipes out all electronic devices within a set area. It stands for Electromagnetic Pulse-"

"Oh~," interrupted Album. "You mean an emp."

"Excuse me?" Vio asked her, his tone neutral.

"Yeah," added Nudar. "I was gonna say, sounds like he's talking about an emp."

"That's not what it's called," snapped the leader. "It's EMP."

"Yeah, and that spells 'emp'." Album was now becoming amused with how annoyed her leader was becoming.

"Leaf, tell me you aren't just gonna stand there and do nothing!" demanded the purple teen.

"Well, I've always been told it was emp," he replied uncertainly.

"Unbelievable!" yelled Vio.

"*Yawn* What's unbelievable?" asked a sleepy Yang as Teams RWBY and JNPR arrived together. Ruby was still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and Jaune seemed embarrassed about something while Pyrrha was pointedly looking straight ahead and past her leader.

Vio looked at them and choose to ignore the Teams' tardiness. "Hey, is it EMP, or emp?"

"Really?" Ruby asked, a little more awake now. "Everybody knows it's 'emp'."

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" he yelled.

Leaf gasped in pain and held his ears down to his head. "Vio, please turn down the volume. I'm kinda sensitive to that kinda thing."

As Vio had a breakdown about the word, Nudar walked over to JNPR. "So what happened to you guys?" he asked them.

"N-n-nothing," stuttered Jaune as he avoided looking at Pyrrha.

"Y-yes, absolutely nothing of importance," she agreed.

"Jaune and Pyrrha had a bit of an… issue this morning," Ren said delicately.

"He walked into the bathroom without knocking and saw her naked when she got out of the shower," Nora cheerfully told him.

"NORA!" yelled the other members of JNPR.

She continued on anyways. "Then Jaune passed out from the bloody nose he got and they haven't been able to look at each other since then."

"NORA!" yelled Jaune and Pyrrha. The two then blushed and looked away from each other.

"Ok then…" Nudar was a little weirded out about that, but decided not to pursue the topic any further.

"Yo, Nudar!" came a new voice. He turned and smirked when he saw the second-year team approaching. They were all in their combat gear like the others, with Coco leading and Velvet sticking close to Yatsuhashi. When they got to the blond teen, Coco held up a fist to him. "What's up, man?"

He replied by bumping fists with her. "Nothin' much. Glad you guys could make it."

"We actually had nothing to do before we leave on our mission in a week," replied Fox, his voice rigid like a seasoned warrior's. "So when you invited us, we felt obligated to accept. It is certainly an excellent way to relax before heading out."

"Wait, you told them, but not us?!" demanded Weiss when she realized Team CFVY knew what was going on.

"Yeah," he replied with a nod. "We figured you guys would come with anyways, but Coco and Fox wanted to know what they were agreeing to first."

The stylish leader of CFVY wrapped an arm around her team's Faunus, eliciting a shriek of surprise from the nervous Velvet. "We probably would've said yes anyways. He's the only guy outside our team who sticks up for Velv here, so he's perfectly fine in our books."

The heiress let out an angry breath and turned away with her nose up. By this time, Vio had finished his rant and had recomposed himself. "Alright, everyone's here?" He got affirmative nods in response. "Then let's go."

The ride down to Vale was uneventful… kinda. While they were getting seated in the airship, Yang made it a point to sit in Vio's lap. When they tried pulling her off (Blake trying the hardest), the brawler's death grip on Vio made them stop to keep him alive. Blake however chose to sit as close to his side as possible. With the blonde in his lap and Blake practically hanging off his arm, Vio's face was as red as Ruby's cloak, much to everyone else's amusement.

When they finally arrived in the city, the group followed VNLA through the streets to their destination. Much like before, Yang and Blake took this opportunity to hang off of Vio, much to his growing annoyance. Not because the two girls were hanging off of him (he was positive Album had told the two about his crush and they were 'fighting' over him), but because the others were laughing at his situation and how he couldn't use his arms. After at least ten minutes, they arrived at the stadium.

"Grif…ball?" asked Weiss as she read the sign.

"Oh no," muttered Ren as he covered his ears.

"YES!" screamed Nora at the top of her lungs, making them all cover their ears from the sonic blast that was her voice. She turned to Ren with a face-splitting grin. "Ren, we get to play Grifball!"

"Yes Nora, how… very… exciting…" he said hesitantly.

Yang grinned savagely and tightened her grip on Vio's arm, making him squirm from the pain. "Sweet, I've always wanted to play!"

"Can we head in and check in," he managed to get out. "I may have rented the place, but I'd rather have both of my arms still work."

She was confused until she realized she was still crushing his arm. She quickly let go with a sheepish smile, not realizing Blake was still hanging on to him. "Sorry, Vio."

"C'mon, Lovebirds!" yelled Album as she closed the door.

The three then realized everyone else had walked in while they weren't paying attention. Vio was quick to head in, dragging Blake along and avoiding Yang grabbing his arm again. Once inside, he removed his arm from the Faunus girl and walked up to the counter/check in desk. The guy behind it was old looking, with grey hair and a face covered in scars. He was wearing a blood red shirt and had a name tag that simply read "Sarge".

"Hello, I'm Vio Black. I rented the court and some gear for today."

"Is that so?" he asked, his voice gruff and with a country drawl. He leaned forward and looked around at their group. He seemed to focus particularly a lot on Ruby, Nora, and Pyrrha. "No Blues, huh?" He looked at Album. "But that one… I wouldn't trust her," he told Vio. "She wears the color of evil… blue."

"Umm…"

"Alright, I'll let you in. Hang on a sec." He walked out of sight, and the group saw a black shotgun mounted on the back wall. A moment later, the door opened, and revealed the man. He held the door open and they entered, finding themselves in a large locker room. "Welcome sports fans, to the Vale Grifball court. Caboose will help you get set up." With that, he walked away while muttering about 'dirty blues corrupting the youth'.

"Caboose?" asked Ruby in confusion.

"Present!" yelled a dopey voice. A couple of the girls (Ruby and Velvet) shrieked in fright from being startled like that. They all turned and saw a blond guy a little older than they were wearing a blue shirt and black pants. He had a dopey smile on his face, and a vacant look in his eyes. "Hello there. I am Caboose."

"Um… Hi…" Album said awkwardly to the blond man.

He looked at her smiling before looking at her shirt. As he stared at her, his eyes widened and he gasped dramatically. "CHURCH!" The strange employee quickly latched on to her and started squeezing the life out of her. "Church, what happened to you?! You got turned into a small old lady! Don't leave me Church!"

Wrenching an arm free, she punched the man in the face. "Get off!" she snarled. When he let go, she fell on her butt, but got back on her feet. "My name is Album White, NOT Church."

The strange man shook his head a bit before smiling stupidly at her. "Ok Albus Dumblechurch."

Her eye started twitching before a new voice interrupted them. "Caboose, leave them alone! The last thing the stadium needs is _another_ harassment suit!" This new man had brown hair with a bit of stubble. A pair of sea-green eyes were glaring at the blond man. His shirt was light blue, but had a normal blue stripe on each sleeve. His pants were also black. "Now piss off. I'm sure that someone else needs your help."

"Ok Church!" he yelled. As he started walking away, he stopped at Album. "Don't think you can take Church away from me. He's my best friend," he said with his voice deepening by several octaves.

"Caboose!"

"Present!" Growling, 'Church' got behind the dumb man and shoved him out the door and slammed it shut. The idiot gone, he turned back to the dumbfounded group.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "He's kind of a handful, and me yelling at him is the only way to make him do stuff. I honestly wonder why he's still employed."

"We may never know," muttered Weiss.

"Anyways, welcome to the fantastic world of Grifball. After we get you guys suited up, we'll take you on to the court." With that, Church walked over to a computer terminal. After typing in a password, sixteen of the lockers beeped as red lights turned on. "Ok, inside each locker is the stuff you'll need to play. It goes over your clothing so no need to undress. Weapons and excess armor can be stored in them during the session." Each of the teams went to a set of four and found exactly as he said.

Church pulled open another locker and showed them the armor. The first looked like a black vest with no sleeves and separated straps where the sides should have been. A couple of patches of lights lined the front and back, but were all off. "Okay, so first: the chest piece. Each one is designed to go on regardless of gender, so put it on like a shirt and then fasten the straps on each side." Out of the group, Nora got hers on the fastest. Jaune and Yatsuhashi had to remove their armor and Fox had to remove his weapons. Once everyone had the chest pieces on, Church continued.

"Next up: the wrist pieces. These wrist bands," he held up what resembled a Scroll mounted to a piece of molded black plastic, "are what you can use to keep score if you're too lazy to look at the scoreboard or to check the condition of each member of your team. These go on your right forearm." He demonstrated how the wristbands were put on, and the students followed suit.

"And finally, the helmets." The helmets they were all holding didn't look like anything special. They resembled motorcycle helmets, but the visors stopped over the eyes. The tops had more of the light patches going in a straight line down the center. They covered each ear, and the back of the head, but that was about it. "The helmets aren't really needed, but the HUD-"

"The what?" interrupted Nudar.

"The Head's Up Display," elaborated Church, "shows the locations of your opponents and allies, and also where the ball is during the match." The helmet was the simplest for all of them as they simply slid them on. The two (three) Faunus had a bit of a problem with their ears, but Velvet and Leaf were shown that the helmets had slots for their ears and Blake simply flattened her own. "We'll sync up the helmets in the stadium once you choose teams. Now, if you'd leave your weapons in here and grab the provided weapons, we can move on to the court." With that, he walked through a pair of double doors and out of the locker room.

The Huntsman/Huntresses in training all begrudgingly parted with their weapons and picked up the hammers that were in the lockers. The weapons had a heavy looking head on one end and a form of dull blade folded on the back of the head. Despite the hammers needing two hands to be held, they weighed practically nothing. "It's the armor," Nora said as they were confused about the weapons. "The chest pieces amp up our aura and augment our natural strength!"

"That's… surprisingly useful," commented Blake.

"Why don't they use this stuff in battle?" asked Yang, thinking of how many Grimm she could kill with the armor's augmentation.

"Because it doesn't have a long life," replied Vio as he adjusted the chest piece. "The way it works drains the battery too quickly for conventional use. If this stuff was used in actual combat with the Grimm and was to be used to its full effectiveness, it would need a battery the sized of Yatsuhashi and would need to remain stationary the entire time." He sighed as he shouldered the hammer. "Plus, the armor only repels weapons that use very specific types of Force and Stun Dust. Which makes it completely useless in battle or extended use."

"Oh," Yang said with a deflated tone.

"C'mon, are we gonna play some Grifball or not?" demanded Coco. Grabbing onto Fox, she dragged her teammate along towards the stadium. The others followed through the double doors and were amazed at how big the inside of the stadium was.

The floor was a large rectangular plane of gray waxed plastic with a red and blue line dividing the court in half. The two lines formed a circle around an iris of metal in the dead center of the court. On either end of the court was a colored zone (one red and one blue) with a circular goal in each area. The court was surrounded by seats on all sides, with a massive screen over one side with a small announcer's box under the screen.

"Damn, this court is huge," muttered Nudar.

"You can say that again," Jaune said in awe.

"Oh good, you guys must be the guys who rented this session," came a male voice. They quickly found Church in the middle of the room, and beside him was the one who had spoken. The man had pale skin on his left arm, and a high-tech mechanical right arm, and a robotic right eye. He was wearing a maroon shirt with red stripes down each sleeve, black pants and the armor. "My name is Simmons, nice to meet you."

"I'm Vio, the one paying for all this." The others quickly made their own introductions. The entire time, Nora was bouncing in place out of excitement over getting to play.

"Alright, now before we begin picking teams, we are ethically-"

"And legally," added Church.

"Obligated to inform you of the rules of Grifball before you can play. Now, the main objective is to get the ball, known as the Grifball, into the opposing team's goal." He gestured to the two circular goal points at either end of the rectangular court. "Now in this game, there are two teams: one red-"

"And one good," Church interrupted again. "When a player picks up the Grifball, the colored lights on their armor will become orange, making them 'Grif'. At that time, the HUDs of both teams will mark this player as the ball carrier and will show you where they are."

"The other objective is to take out enemy players and their ball carrier so your team can get the ball to the goal," continued Simmons. "To do so, we have the Force Hammers each of you are equipped with." He pulled a similar hammer off his back. "When swung, each hammer uses a small amount of Force Dust to repel your opponent. After two strikes at most, your armor will lock, and you will be 'dead' for 10 seconds. When you're Grif, however, it takes only a single hit from a hammer."

"The hammers also have a secondary sword mode," added Church. Taking his own hammer, he swung it around and the dull blade extended and the head of the hammer slid down to form a guard. At the same time, the handle shortened itself into a reasonable short sword length. Now in its blade mode, the weapon gave off a bit of a bluish glow. "In this mode, the weapons instead use Stun Dust, and produce the same effects on the armor as the hammer does. In this mode, they're much faster, but harder to hit your enemy with as they lack an area affect."

"Any questions before we move on?" asked Simmons. Velvet raised her hand. "Yes miss?"

"Um… these hammers and swords aren't going to hurt us, are they?" she asked fearfully.

"Not at all," answered the man in red. "The armor is designed to bolster your Aura to the point where the Force Dust won't seriously deteriorate it. Additionally, the sword will have the effect of a light taser, and won't seriously harm you."

"Worst comes to worse, you get a little shaken up when your Aura is hit by the hammer or you hit a wall from a collision," added Church.

"Any more questions?" There were no other questions from the teams, so Simmons nodded to Church.

"Okay, then let's start by picking teams," said Church. "Since there are sixteen of you, there will be four teams, so four captains."

Vio looked at the others. "Okay, before we get any further, let me just add in another rule. Each Captain is going to be from each Team, and the captains can't choose a member of their own team. In other words, each team will have one member from each of the actual teams." He held up his right hand. "Also, since I'm paying for all of this, I get to be one of the captains by default."

Team JNPR pushed their leader forwards. "Jaune," Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora said together.

"Wha?!" cried the blond. "No! It should be Pyrrha!"

"Majority rule, Jaune," Ren stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"But-"

"Are for sitting!" sang Nora.

He groaned in defeat and hung his head in sadness as he accepted his Team's decision to make him a Captain.

Teams RWBY and CFVY debated their choices for a moment. Finally, Weiss stepped forward. "Well, I guess I'll be the captain from Team RWBY." She nodded to Ruby and shared a small smile with her for letting her be a leader.

"And I'm going to represent CFVY," finished Coco as she walked from her group to join the other three captains. The remaining students lined up in groupings based on their teams. "So, how do we choose our teams?" she asked with a tilt of the head.

"Well, I guess we'll go alphabetically for this," Vio said with a shrug. "So you're up first, Coco."

"Hmmm…" she looked at the line of players. "Yang," she said while pointing to the blonde.

"Sweet, first pick," she said excitedly. She jogged over to her captain and high-fived her.

"Um…" Jaune looked at the group uncertainly. "Album, I guess?"

"Meh," she said indifferently with a shrug.

As she casually strolled over to Jaune with her hammer over her shoulder, Vio leaned over to Weiss. "You realize he probably only picked her because she looks like you, right?"

"Unfortunately," she muttered with a shake of her head. She then pushed him on the arm. "Now hurry up and choose."

He took a look before pointing to his first pick. "Blake."

She smiled and blushed a bit. "Alright," she said as she walked over to Vio. She smiled at him but tried to avoid looking at him for too long.

Weiss nodded and looked at who was left. She stared at Leaf a little longer than the others, and seemed to be debating something. Ultimately, she pointed at him. "I'll pick Leaf."

He grinned and walked over to the heiress. As he did so, Vio put a hand to his mouth to make it seem like he was only talking to Weiss. "Step in the right direction," he whispered. She blushed a bit and looked at the ground, but Leaf smiled a bit when he realized who Vio was actually talking to.

This went on in a similar fashion until the four of them had chosen their teams. Vio's teammates were Blake, Ren, and Fox. After Leaf, Weiss had chosen Pyrrha and Yatsuhashi. Jaune wound up adding Ruby and Velvet to his team, and Coco's last two teammates were Nora and Nudar. With that, the groups looked at Church and Simmons. "Okay," Vio told them. "We're ready."

"Excellent," Simmons said with a smile. "Now one last thing: the scoring system." He held up his right arm and pointed to the Scroll on it. "These scrolls are linked to the scoreboard, and can tell you who's winning on the spot. The scoring system is broken up into two parts: the team score, and personal score. The team score is measured in increments of ten, and goes up to thirty. These points are what determine the length of a round, and are earned when a team gets the Grifball into the opponent's goal."

"Now the personal score is the fun part," explained Church. "Every time you take out an opposing player, you personally get two points. These points may not contribute to the overall score, but they are good for bragging rights and proving how much better you are than the others at this game. You're personal score increases and doesn't get reset with each round."

"Now without further ado, let's get this game started!" Simmons said cheerfully. He and Church jogged off the court and into the bleachers. Simmons typed away at his scroll before the screen overhead lit up. Along the bottom of the screen, there were four blank panels. The four panels then started flashing real quick before they all lit up. On the right, Vio and Jaune's faces were connected by a square U. On the opposite side, it was Weiss and Coco.

"Ok, the two teams on the right side of the screen stay on the court, the rest of you get into the bleachers," ordered Church.

As Weiss and Jaune's teams walked off the court, Yang pulled Blake aside quickly. "Alright Blake, I've got an idea as to how we can settle one of our little arguments concerning Vio."

"And that would be…?" trailed off the secret Faunus.

"Our personal scores," she answered. "Whoever has the highest score in the end gets to go on a date with Vio."

Vio, without them realizing it, heard the entire thing. He cleared his throat and made both girls jump a bit in shock. "Why exactly are you using me for a reward?" What he didn't vocalize was how psyched he was about how they both had feelings for him.

"Um… No reason…" Yang said awkwardly.

"Why bother figuring it out?" Album said forcefully as she joined the group. She pushed Yang off the court. "It's simply a quarrel between friends, and you're going to respect whatever the outcome is." The glare she gave him told him that he had no say in the matter. She leaned in to Yang's ear. "Way to let Vio actually find out you two are fighting over him, Yang," she growled.

"I'm pretty sure he figured out because I sat in his lap," she snapped.

"Whatever!" With a final shove, she pushed Yang off the court and went to join her team. When their armor lit up with blue lights. At the same time, Vio's team lit up red. The two groups got on their respective sides of the court. After they arranged themselves around the center circle that the bomb would come out of. Vio, Fox, Album, and Ruby were holding their weapons in hammer mode, while Jaune, Velvet, Blake, and Ren held them as swords.

"Alright, let the match begin!" Church yelled over the speaker. With a loud electronic tone, the ball was launched out of the iris-like center. Blake quickly grabbed it out of the air and hit the ground running. AS they were told, her armor lit up orange, and everyone on Jaune's team saw a red target following her on their visors. As Album and Velvet started following her, Vio slammed his hammer into them and sent them to the ground with their armor locked.

"Dammit Vio!" yelled the white-haired girl as she struggled against the paralyzing armor. He only laughed as Jaune ducked out of the way to avoid Fox and got tazed by Ren's sword. Ruby, being the fastest without her Semblance, hit Blake out of the air. As the cat Faunus fell, the ball flew out of her hands and went flying. Velvet, having finally recovered, went tearing after the ball. Coco and Yatsuhashi were screaming encouragement from the stands as their teammate ran for the red goal. As she got in close, however, Ren managed to get her with his sword. Thinking fast, she twisted in the air and hurled it at Album as she chased Vio.

Fox swiped it out of the air however, and then rolled to a stop with the ball tucked under his arm. He holstered his weapon to grip the ball better. He pivoted on his heel and started towards the blue goal. Ren followed behind him and used his sword to take out anyone that got too close to the ball carrier. Album charged towards Fox with her hammer like a battering ram, but Blake jumped over her and hit her in the back with her stun sword. Jaune somehow got ahead of them, and tried swinging the hammer at Fox. The second-year dropped to the ground and slid under it, dropping the ball into the goal. Ren wasn't as quick, and got hit by the swing.

"Score one, Red Team!" Simmons cheered into the mic. Yang and the other two members of VNLA cheered for their leader. After Fox cleared the goal area, Jaune was almost blown up by the plume of Burn Dust that shot up into the air.

"Alright, let's get the next round set up," muttered Church. The ball was retracted into the goal and the center ring lit up. "Back to center court so Round Two can begin."

**-(In Spongebob Announcer voice) Fifteen Minutes Later-**

"And the Red Team is the winner!" Simmons yelled excitedly. Vio and his team won with a final score at 3-2. Of course, the two teams had gone crazy trying to beat one another. But Vio's team managed to win by a hair. "Suck it Blue!" he yelled at Church.

"Okay, okay," muttered the man in blue. "Let's keep this going." He touched a couple buttons on the screen, and the scoreboard displayed their personal scores. Blake had a small smile after seeing that she had 24 points and looked over to Yang.

"24 points so far, Yang," she said confidently.

"It's only round one," was Yang's reply as her armor lit up blue.

**(Twenty minutes later)**

"And Blue Team wins it! Eat it Red!" Church practically yelled into the microphone. Leaf held his ears in pain and Velvet whimpered from the volume. Above the two commentators, the scoreboard read 0-3. The team's victory was obviously due to the fact that Coco had chosen the strongest hitters outside of Team CFVY. Additionally, Yang had taken out everyone who wasn't on her team, regardless of whether they were carrying the ball or not. As a result, her personal score was now at 38. The rest of Coco's team was lower in terms of a personal score since Yang had done her best to get as many 'kills' as possible.

Panting a bit, she leaned against the separating barrier and smirked at Blake. "Well kitten, looks like I'm winning that date with Vio after all," she said smugly.

At that moment, Church picked up the microphone. "Alright, winners of round 1, please get out on the court right now! You Red Losers, get off the court right now."

Blake gave Yang a challenging look as she leapt over the barrier while the rest of her team walked through the door onto the court. "Well there's still another round Yang. And that's when I'll get my chance to pull ahead."

Vio shook his head as he walked by. _What did I do to deserve having feelings for both Blake and Yang?_

The next round was certainly interesting. Mostly because it was the longest round, and because during said match, Yang and Blake spent all their time targeting the other team. Because of that, there were incredibly long gaps in between scores. After roughly thirty minutes, Vio's team managed to score their third goal, bringing it to 3-2. Of course, it was only because Fox caught it in mid-air and Yang sent him flying into her goal with the ball. Although, the real irony of it all was that Yang wound up tying her and Blake's score.

"I want a rematch!" she yelled loudly after they saw the final results for their personal scores.

"Sorry Yang, but I only rented the court for a small tournament," Vio told her as he walked by. Everyone on Coco's team and his were giving her and Blake the stink-eye for their obsessive contest.

"Then just me and Blake!" she quickly said while getting on the blue side of the court. "Let's go, Blake! One on one!"

"As much as I'd like that, I don't think that's wise." The cat Faunus turned and started walking away. Yang was confused before she yelped in pain when Church pressed a taser to her back.

"C'mon Blondie, let's go. We've got to get your gear back in the locker room," the man in blue told her harshly.

Yang quickly got back on her feet and grit her teeth. A couple sparks of fire started appearing in her hair, but Ruby and Vio grabbed her before she could attack Church. With Nudar and Album helping them out, they finally managed to drag the terrifyingly strong blonde back into the locker room to get out of her gear.

-Twelve minutes later-

For the remainder of the ride back to Beacon, Yang spent her time pouting with her arms crossed. Even when Blake got payback and sat in Vio's lap, she kept pouting over not winning her bet with Blake. When they finally got back, Blake and Vio forced Yang to get off the airship.

"So…" Blake said awkwardly. Yang turned a furious glare at her partner, making the Faunus flinch. "Who's getting the date with Vio exactly?"

"Me." Yang's tone was terrifying and forceful; practically daring Blake to challenge her.

"But you didn't have a higher score," Weiss interjected with an unspoken "duh".

"So Blake won it?" Ruby asked in confusion.

"Neither of them won!" snapped the heiress. "They tied, so both of them won and both of them lost!"

"Now I'm confused."

"How about you both go on a date with him at the same time?" Leaf said with an annoyed tone as he butted into the conversation.

Album laughed nervously as she grabbed onto him. "C'mon Leaf, don't be ridiculous. They can't both go on a date with him at the same time." She leaned closer. "Don't you dare ruin my fun," she threatened him.

He shook her free. "I can't believe you two didn't realize or think of this. I get you both want to be his girlfriend, but there's a simple solution."

"What is that, exactly?" Blake asked skeptically.

He groaned loudly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He 'looked' at the girls. "You do know polygamy is legal in the Four Kingdoms, right?"

Teams RWBY and VNLA went silent at that (JNPR and CFVY had already gone back to the school). Album was fidgeting nervously while hoping her fun wouldn't be taken away. "You know, I never thought about that," Blake said after a while.

"I know, right?" Yang asked with a smile. "It would've saved us all this hassle." She looked at Leaf with a tilted head. "So, why didn't you mention this before now?"

Vio looked at his partner with an agitated look. "Yes Leaf, why haven't you mentioned this before now?" The Faunus teen simply pointed his thumb at Album as she nervously tried to sneak away. "Oh. That explains it," he deadpanned. He gave a sickly sweet smile to the two girls. "We'll need to plan the date I'm apparently bringing you two on some other time." He turned with a furious snarl. "ALBUM!" he yelled as he started chasing the fleeing girl.

Leaf sighed before walking towards the building with Nudar. Following them, Blake and Yang started planning their date with Vio. Therefore, Ruby and Weiss were left alone by the airship docking station. "Hey Weiss?"

"Yes, Ruby?"

"What does polygamy mean?" The rich girl only groaned loudly in annoyance over being left with her clueless leader.

**A/N: Damn that took forever. Sorry that took so long. But it was longer than usual, and I had graduation, work, and I got Pokemon Y recently. Also, hopefully I can get over my brain fart with Into Fiore and get around to finishing that chapter. **

**Another thing, I loved being able to write a couple of the Reds and Blues in this. I was tempted to include Grif and Tucker, if not a couple of Freelancers, but I decided it was enough with Sarge, Simmons, Caboose, and Church… And I just realized the thing about the soldiers' names I used. And, I managed to include one of my favorite arguments from Red vs Blue, so there's that too. **

**Well, so long people. Reviews are appreciated, as are follows/favorites to all you who are just getting into this. Hasta la luego, luego bye-bye.**


	14. Broken Up View

**Broken Up View**

**A/N: Another chapter! I'm so sorry this took so long, but between work and playing a lot of League of Legends, I also wound up getting a huge brain fart. This took so long to finish, and it pisses me off so much. Also I hope to get more work done with **_**Into Fiore**_**. Hopefully I get over this brain fart as well. Finally, this will be a pretty long chapter since it's basically a series of one-shots about each of the members of VNLA on their own. And so, off we go!**

**I own nothing. Please R &amp; R.**

**Vio**

The team leader let out a content sigh as he walked into the room, a box under his arm. On the box was a hexagon inside a circle **(The Didact symbol from Halo)**. Above it were three letters: E.M.P. He smiled when he saw Leaf's piano was absent. "Well, nice to see Leaf listened and took his piano out of here." Humming _This Will Be the Day_ to himself, he opened the little box and pulled out a cone-shaped device.

The device itself was light purple, and had bright blue lines running along it. It had a sphere-shaped bottom piece at the base of the cone. Based on the design of it, one could easily realize that the device was meant to open up like a flower. Unfolding the base, he set it up in the middle of the room before pressing the light blue power button on the side. Almost immediately, the device lit up.

"_Hello!"_ came a synthetic female voice. _"Thank you for purchasing this Electromagnetic Pulse Generator. You may call me, Sheila."_

"Hello Sheila," Vio said politely despite talking to a machine. He was simply in that good of a mood. "I would like you to perform a scan on this room and send out a pulse to eradicate any hidden microphones or cameras."

"_Certainly!"_ it happily replied. _"Such a function is what I was designed to do after all. I'll begin scanning the room right away!"_ A high-pitched hum began going through the room after that as the unit checked the dimensions of the room. Thirty seconds later, the device stopped humming. "_All done!"_ it chirped. _"Electromagnetic Pulse generator armed. Please remove all electronics you do not wish to harm."_

"Already done," he told it. _Leaf's keyboard is gone and I have Ren holding on to my Scroll for me._

"_If you say so. Firing in 3… 2… 1… Now firing emp."_

"Wait, what did you say?!"

The device opened up like a flower as a blue light began to glow from the center of the unit. The light intensified as a blue pulse was sent out and filled the room. After it died down, the light in the EMP unit died down. "Is that it?"

"_Not even close,"_ came a familiar voice. The unit started glowing white before a small hologram of Album appeared. _"Vio, if you're seeing this, then I found the emp unit you were going to buy and use to try and clear out the room. And if you're someone else, tell Vio I'm from the future and that he owes me 300 Lien."_ He rolled his eyes at that comment. Of course Album would do something like that. "_Now, you're probably wondering about why this appeared after the emp fired a pulse. Well the answer is simple: I rigged this device so that not only will it not fire an electronic destroying pulse, it will broadcast this message."_

"Dammit, Album," he growled through grit teeth. His hands were tightly clenched in fists of rage.

"_And now, I leave you with this, oh fearless leader." _She pointed her index fingers and started shaking her hips. _"Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, ha-ha-ha-ha-h-"_ The recorded dance never finished because Vio took the device and hurled it at the wall with an angry yell, causing it to break into pieces from the center unit. After that, he proceeded to start tearing up the box the unit came in. As he tried to tear up the smaller pieces, there was a knock on his door.

With a scowl, he stomped over to the door in a very Weiss-like manner and pulled it open. "Yes?"

On the other side of the door stood a concerned looking Blake and a smiling Yang. "Hello~!" sang the blonde brawler. "We were hanging out in our room when we heard a yell and something slam into the wall," she said cheerfully.

"Are you alright, Vio?" Blake asked. "What was all the yelling and the crashing about?"

His eye twitched at the question. "I was trying to use an EMP generator to get-"

"Don't you mean-"

"Don't start that," Blake interrupted the smirking blonde.

"Thank you," Vio graciously told Blake. "Anyways, I was trying to get rid of some planted bugs Album put in our room using an EMP. Unfortunately, Album somehow found the one I would use and made it useless as an EMP generator. So I was furious about that and hurled the unit at the wall."

"Wow. Tough break," Yang said sympathetically.

"Well, Weiss is forcing Ruby to study right now, so we're on our own. Want to hang out?" Blake asked. Vio was internally cheering when he noticed the light blush on her cheeks.

"Sure," he replied with a nod as he walked out and closed the door. "Let me just get my Scroll from Ren and we can start planning the date I have to take you two on." One quick stop to JNPR's room (And Nora singing about pancakes) later, and the three were walking around the Beacon campus. "So," he asked them, "anywhere you two want to go in particular?"

"Well, I know a really great restaurant down in Vale," Yang told them, edging closer to Vio in preparation for grabbing onto him. "We could all go there for an evening."

"That sounds nice," Blake added. As she said this, she grabbed a hold of Vio's right hand and held onto it. He went to pull away, but she applied a bit of pressure to get him to stop doing so. "So how does next weekend sound?"

"It should work," he replied, internally groaning when Yang attached herself to his left arm. "I'm sure I'll be able to cover it," he added.

"Awesome!" Yang said while hugging his arm closer to her chest. _So soft!_ "Sounds like a plan!"

"So, what now?" Blake asked. The three legitimately had the entire day to themselves.

"I don't know," replied the rich teen. The three kept walking with the two girls clinging to the young man's arms. "Want to see if the cafeteria is serving lunch yet?"

Yang smiled brightly. "Sure!" Tightening her grip, Yang dragged Vio (and by extension Blake) with her to the cafeteria.

When the three arrived at the cafeteria, there were some students hanging out in their casual clothes, but it was pretty empty since a lot of their classmates were probably hanging out in the city. After the trio got some lunch (today's special being steak and potatoes), they got a table to themselves. "So Vio, what do you think of Vale?" Yang asked him. "How is it compared to Atlas?"

He smirked while cutting a piece of steak. "Well it's certainly a lot better than Atlas. The people here are just so… kind," he said with a pause to eat the piece of meat. "In Atlas, the people only care or themselves, and tend to be extremely closed off and bigoted. As I'm certain you've heard, the humans in Atlas are the most biased and racist people in the four kingdoms. But here… The people don't seem to care as much about what species you are. I may have seen some racism, but not as much or as blatant as in Atlas."

Blake smiled at him. "I've noticed that too. There may be some racism here, but the citizens in Vale are a lot nicer than the humans I've met before coming here."

"That's Vale for you," Yang replied happily after taking a mouthful of soda. "We're some of the nicest around." She then leaned in towards Vio, giving him a better view of her cleavage. "So Vio, you looking forward to our date on Saturday?"

He composed himself with some effort (thank Dust his father taught him how to do so), and looked at the blonde with a controlled smile. "I'm actually slightly anxious, Yang. This will be my first actual date, since Weiss and I never did anything that could actually be considered romantic."

Both girls laughed at that, Yang moreso than Blake. "You and Weiss were a thing?!" she asked.

"You know, that doesn't exactly surprise me," the Faunus commented dryly with a smirk. "Especially since the two of you are from similar backgrounds."

"Yeah, we were a thing several years back," he said with a bit of a chuckle. "It ended disastrously when Weiss' sister tricked me and destroyed our extremely innocent relationship."

"Her sister?" asked Yang. "Now I'm interested. Start talking and tell me everything."

**Nudar **

The blond teen was busy in the school workshop yet again, but for what he hoped would be the last time. "Alright, Soul Cutter, let's finish you up," he said tenderly to the weapon. He had been spending a tremendous number of hours in this one room trying to modify his weapon to deal the reloading problem. And he had finally finished the alterations to the reloading system. A tweaked screw here, a tightened bolt there, and the buster sword was reassembled. "It's alive!" he cheered as he held it in his hands, earning himself some strange looks from other students in the workshop.

"What's going on, Nudar?" came a cultured female voice. He looked to the source and found Velvet staring at him inquisitively. Considering her mysterious weapon was on her belt, he figured she had been working on the weapon again.

"Oh, I just put the finishing touches on Soul Cutter so that it works much more effectively," he said proudly. "Now I can stop spending so much time in here."

She giggled at his remark. "Well to be fair, you've spent so much time here because you've been helping me with _my_ weapon every now and again."

"Yeah, good point." He heaved Soul Cutter onto his shoulder and started towards the door. "Well, see ya later, Velvet," he said with a wave. "Good luck finishing your weapon."

"Thank you!" she called to him as he exited.

The blond teen was humming a song he liked called _Quincy's Craft_ as he approached the locker room to drop off his weapon_._ As he entered the locker room, he found Pyrrha polishing her armor and sharpening her weapon Mil ō. "Hey Pyrrha," he greeted as he walked in.

"Hello, Nudar," she told him. "How are you today?"

"Feeling pretty alright," he said with a grin and a nod. "Finished up Soul Cutter, and now I'm depositing it here in my locker."

"Well congratulations," she told him. He nodded before going to his locker, which happened to be near him. As he forcibly wedged the buster sword inside it, she kept staring at him. "Say, Nudar. Can I ask you something?"

He grunted as he pushed up against his sword. "Sure. Go right ahead." He began struggling again to get Soul Cutter inside his locker.

"I may be mistaken and assuming things here, but are you originally from Mistral?"

He stopped at that, and practically froze when he heard that question. "W-what makes you say that, Pyrrha?" he asked nervously.

"Well, your name follows Mistralian naming conventions, with your first name being in ancient Mistralian, and your last being derived from an old Mistralian deity," she explained.

"Maybe my parents had roots in Mistral," he replied nervously.

"Then why are you getting so nervous about this?" she asked him.

"I'm not!" he yelled as he punched an adjacent locker, creating a dent in it.

The redhead stared at him for a moment in silence. "Nudar, I know you're hiding something," she said in a caring tone. She got up and put a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong? I'm your friend."

He pushed off her hand and pulled Soul Cutter from its loose position in the locker. "It doesn't matter. You don't need to know."

"Nudar-"

"Let it be, Pyrrha!" he yelled at her.

The invincible girl was silent for a moment. "No." She got in front of him and raised her own weapon. "I won't leave this be until you tell me what's wrong. And if I have to fight you for you to tell me, then so be it."

"Really, Pyrrha?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "You want to fight me because I won't tell you something?"

"I don't want to fight a friend, but if I need to have a sparring match to get you to tell me, then so be it," she told him firmly.

He let out a heavy sigh before looking at her. "So either I tell you now, or fight you and tell you if I lose." He shook his head. "Really great choices, Pyrrha." "Alright then, let's have a spar, Nikos. And if I win, you drop my name thing. Deal?"

She grinned at his challenge. "And should I win, you _will_ answer my questions. Very well, Nudar, I accept." The Invincible Girl quickly put her gear back on and grabbed her weapon while Nudar started walking towards the training room. Within a couple of minutes, the two were standing opposite one another in the same room Goodwitch had them spar in. "So, we go until one of us is in the red for our Aura reading?" she asked him as they got ready to begin.

"I guess," he replied as he strapped his Scroll to the underside of his right arm. Opening up the Aura Monitor on it, he pulled Soul Cutter out of the ground and rested it across his shoulders. "Just so you know, Pyrrha, I'm doing this so I at least have some degree of a say in whether or not I tell you anything."

"And I feel it right to warn you I won't be holding back, Nudar," she replied with a grin. Holding her sword in her right hand and her shield in her left, she got into a battle stance. Her eyes asked a simple question to the blond swordsman.

"Go," he said simply as he held Soul Cutter to his right with both hands. With Aura-enhanced speeds, the two launched themselves at each other, their blades colliding with sparks from the collision. Nudar was expecting the amount of power Pyrrha put into her attack, but she was shocked when Mil ō was pushed back in the collision. There was even more power behind the blond boy's attack then she had assumed.

Nudar wasted no time after the attack bounced back. Swinging his sword up, he swung in a downwards strike towards her legs. Shocked at the speed he recovered with, she could only roll out of the way. When his blade slammed into the ground, the ground cracked and even broke into some chunks from the force of the attack. _How did he make his attack have so much power? _Pyrrha thought to herself.

She held her lance up and threw it at him, pulling the trigger and launching it harder at him. The tip of the spear slammed into his Aura and slid off of it into the ground. The redhead dove for the spear but her stomach became acquainted with the toe of his boot. She rolled on the ground before righting herself on her hands and knees. Nudar launched himself at her with his sword held high, and her Aura barely managed to repel the attack. _It's even stronger!_

"You're probably wondering how I managed to make my attacks hit harder with my longer swings," Nudar said simply to Pyrrha. "It's because I'm using my Semblance. It allows me to increase or decrease the accelerative force of the weapon I'm wielding to alter my attack's power." He hefted the blade over his shoulder and looked at her with a challenging stare. "So, how are you going to take me down now?"

Pyrrha however was confused. _That Semblance… that weapon… the stance… Why does it all seem so familiar?_ She felt as though she had seen and heard about Nudar and his Semblance. But she wasn't sure how. She shifted her eyes to her weapon. _I could get Milō back using my Semblance, but I don't want anyone knowing about it. _She looked down at her left arm. _At least I've got my shield to block his attacks._ Setting a plan to mind, she started running towards where her weapon was imbedded in the ground. When Nudar made a power swing at her as she charged, she lifted her shield up to the blade. As it slid aside, she attuned the metal in Soul Cutter to her Semblance.

Using it as an opportunity, Pyrrha launched herself into a roll and pulled her lance from the ground as she passed it. Getting into a stance on one knee, she converted the lance to its rifle form and used the shield as a guard. Taking aim, she started firing a series of shots at her opponent. Nudar started running to avoid getting hit, and activated his sword's newest mode. The sword opened up along the edge of the blade to reveal a long vent for Dust as trigger shaped like a brake handle released itself from the handle. **A/N: Basically, a brake handle from a bike came out of the handle.**

Grinning at her shocked expression, he twisted the handle to change the dust element. With a powerful swing, he launched an arc of flames from the edge of his blade. The Invincible Girl quickly dove to the ground and rolled to the side to avoid an overhead swing. Switching back to sword mode, the two clashed blades repeatedly with neither willing to give an inch to the other. However, Pyrrha found herself losing ground as he kept increasing the force of each attack. _What is so bad he's trying to keep me from finding out?_

As Pyrrha took an overhead swing at him to hit his sword's hilt out of his hands. As she moved her weapon up, he raised his left foot and kicked her in the stomach. The air rushed out of her lungs, Nudar knocked her aside. She stumbled, and dropped her weapon again. "This match is over!" Nudar yelled as he swung sideways towards the redhead. Raising her empty hand behind her blocking shield, the sword arced up to avoid her. His eyes went wide as his powered swing flew by her and took a shield bash to his stomach. As she went to deliver a punch to his head, Nudar let go of his sword and raised his leg.

With a loud yelp of pain, her fist met his face as his boot slammed into her side. Both combatants fell to the ground groaning in pain. "Alright then, Nudar. I'd say you won," Pyrrha groaned to him.

"So you'll stop pressuring me for what you wanted to know?" he asked as he raised his head to look at her.

"Despite this technically being a tie about our Auras," she held up her Scroll and he saw they were both on the red level, "I will hold to my agreement and leave you be as to your past." She made herself get up and walked over to where her weapon was laying.

"It is fair," he said simply while getting up. "But I will give you something to deal with the tie." He walked over to Soul Cutter and rested it over his shoulder. "Try to remember stories about someone called 'The Vehement Avenger' from Sanctum. Then you'll start piecing it all together." With that, the blond swordsman left the stadium. He knew what Pyrrha would remember: she'd remember the reason he was going to school in Vale.

He had been a problem child at Sanctum since he hated intolerance and got into dozens of fights. Of course, since people hated him more than his friend Castaño because he wasn't as naturally intimidating, he had taken more crap about the delinquency issues. Which is why at the end of his time at Sanctum, he had been borderline forbidden from attending Haven. He had been prepared to go into the workforce and outlive his infamy with a job at a convenience store or something, but Ozpin came to his family's door one night and asked him to attend Beacon instead of working like a civilian. Who was his mother to refuse the chance to have her son be a professional Huntsman?

**-That night-**

Nudar was sitting in Team VNLA's room with the rest of the team. Album was cheerfully typing away on her Scroll while laying on her back with one leg bouncing in the air. Vio was reading from their World History book but seemed more interested in his own thoughts than in the text book. And finally, Leaf was drawing in a sketch book (How does he do that if he's blind?!) and looked as though he were on Cloud Nine. As for himself, he was currently messaging Castaño and his friends from back home. Hearing about how much they all missed him, he smirked when he got an idea.

"Hey guys," he said to snap the others out of whatever they were thinking about. "Can you come over here for a moment?" As they all reluctantly came over to his bed, he sent a message to Castaño to get the rest of their old group together for a video call. "There are some people I want you to meet."

"Who is it?" Album asked in an annoyed tone.

His Scroll started going off with his friend's name appearing on the screen for a video call. Turning the device sideways, he hit accept. Immediately, their ears were greeted by a loud girl's voice. "NUDAR!" she happily yelled. Leaf groaned in pain from the volume as he held his bat ears.

There were three people on the screen, two boys and one girl, wearing the Haven Uniform. The girl had bright orange hair and a couple of flower hairpins. Her grey eyes were shining happily like her gigantic smile. To her left was a teen with straight black hair. His glasses had silver inlays and a five-pointed asterisk on the bridge. A similar necklace, also in silver, hung around his neck. He looked mildly happy to see Nudar, and was looking at the other three as if he was calculating their every weakness. The third teen was a taller boy with dark tan skin. His short brown hair was filled with waves and hung loosely and partially obscured one of his eyes.

"Hey guys!" Nudar said happily to them. He looked at his teammates. "Guys, these are my friends from back home. The girl is Sunset, the black haired dork with glasses-"

"HEY!" he yelled indignantly.

"Is Chromium. And the dark skinned guy is Castaño." He looked back at the screen. "Guys, this is my team."

"So you guys are the VNLA Nudar keeps telling us about," the darker teen commented. "It's nice to meet you guys."

"Nudar talks about you guys a lot," Sunset told them. "I'm so glad he managed to find such good friends at Beacon!"

"That is unless you're all delinquents like he is," Chromium stated while adjusting his glasses.

Vio laughed at that. "Naw, that's this one," he said while pointing his thumb at Album.

She punched Vio on the arm. "Jerk," she growled. "But yeah, Nudar is my partner in crime for pranking this one group of assholes we have to deal with," she explained to the Mistralians.

"Wonderful," muttered Chromium. "Now we've got two of them."

"Hey, did you hear?" Castaño interrupted. "Chromium was made into a Team Leader here at Haven."

"Oh yeah, how's that going?" Nudar asked his friend.

"Quite well," he told them while adjusting his glasses with a proud smile. "They're still adjusting to having such a well-organized individual in a position of power, but I'm sure they'll get used to it."

"I doubt that," Nudar teased him with Sunset laughing loudly while the black-haired teen yelled at him.

"Hey, Nudar's friends," Album loudly said to the screen. "Are you guys coming with the exchange program?"

Chromium nodded. "We signed up for it. It'll take a couple weeks for us to show up though."

"I'm excited to meet you guys!" Sunset loudly told them. "You sound so awesome!"

Nudar smiled as his two sets of friends got along. He honestly felt that all of his friends would get along just fine.

**Leaf's POV**

When the Faunus woke up that morning, he felt like he wanted to try spending more time with his teammates. He was woken up when Album was up unusually early. "Morning Album," he greeted her with a sleepy yawn.

He heard her flinch a bit, which meant he probably startled her. "Oh, hey Leaf," she said calmly when she realized who it was. "What are you doing up this early?"

"I'm usually the first one up," he told her calmly. "You woke me up just now. Are you going somewhere?"

"I have…plans for today. It's a shame I can't be around to see the results." There was an anticipatory tone to her voice that indicated she was extremely excited about whatever was going to happen.

"Can I tag along?" he asked.

She hissed through her teeth. "Sorry, kind of already got Nora helping me out, and it's a two-person job."

"Oh." His ears drooped a little at that. "Well, maybe some other time then."

"Yeah, sure," she said as she opened the door and closed it softly.

He sighed to himself after she left. _Well, so much for that,_ he thought to himself. Slightly bummed out about it, he started going about his own daily routine and took a quick shower. As he got out, his ears were twitching in irritation from getting wet. "I've got to buy a shower cap," he complained as he gently dried his sensitive ears. After dressing in the casual/combat clothes he had brought in with him, he stepped out to his other teammates getting ready. "Hey guys," he greeted.

"Oum Almighty!" Nudar yelled in shock. The Faunus heard his friend turn. "Jeez, Leaf. Don't sneak up on us like that."

"He came out of the bathroom," Vio deadpanned. "It wasn't that scary."

"So," Leaf said to draw attention back to himself. "What are you guys up to today?"

"I'm going down to the workshop to finish working on my weapon," Nudar said proudly. "So no bothering me."

"I plan on going into the city on an errand today," Vio informed them very matter-of-factly. "Also, I'd recommend keeping your keyboard out of here for the day."

"So, do _you_ need any help?" He tried to not sound too whiny, but he wanted to do something with his friends.

"Sorry, Leaf," he said genuinely. "But I was planning on doing this myself. The fewer people who know my plan, the better my chances Album won't stop me." Leaf and Nudar were confused about that statement, but knew their Leader wouldn't elaborate on it.

"It's ok," he said while trying to sound upbeat about it. "I'll find something to do today. Maybe CFVY isn't doing anything today." That meant nothing. He knew CFVY would be busy and were friends with Nudar, not him.

"Well, if you say so," Nudar said to him. There was an awkward silence where Nudar and Vio kept getting ready. "Ok, I'm going to the workshop. Later!" With that, he went over to the door and left. The amount of weight behind each step told Leaf he was excited.

Another couple minutes passed before an alarm on Vio's Scroll went off. Leaf heard him tapping away at the screen before getting up. "I'm leaving now," he told him. "I'll be back in about an hour, and I'd recommend getting that keyboard out of here before then." He opened up the door. "See ya man." The door closed.

The Bat Faunus sighed before getting up. Grabbing his keyboard, he put the instrument into its bag and went to the cafeteria for a quick breakfast. Grabbing some fruit and some toast, the green-colored teen found a seat with who his sense of smell told him was Jaune. "Hey Leaf," said leader greeted him, confirming his suspicions about his identity. "What's up?"

Leaf sat down and set his keyboard down next to him. "Vio and the others are all doing their own things today. So, I'm left to my own devices. How about you?"

"Well, Pyrrha and I were going to train some more this morning, and then we were going to go study for History." He chuckled awkwardly and the surrounding sounds showed his arm scratching his head. "I'd invite you, but..."

"It's alright," Leaf told him with what he hoped was a reassuring smile and a nonchalant wave. "I think I'll take today as a personal day."

"Oh, alright then," the blond said awkwardly. "See ya." With that, the leader of JNPR got up and left Leaf on his own. The Faunus finished his meal by himself, and returned the empty tray. After leaving the cafeteria, he wandered around the campus for a while looking for somewhere to play his keyboard in peace. However, he ran into one problem.

_There's too much noise,_ he thought to himself. It seemed like everywhere he went, there were other students hanging out and being noisy. Of course, he didn't bother with the library since the librarian probably wouldn't approve of someone playing a piano there (even though they got away with all sorts of crap in there. Some kids even had an airsoft tournament in there last month!), so he was thinking about finding a quiet tree or a similar place. After a lengthy search, he found a tree with no discussions in the immediate vicinity.

Sitting himself down in the shade, he found the zipper and took his keyboard out. Switching it on, he tried to think of what to play based on how he was feeling. _Vio and the guys ditched me, and I don't have many other friends around here,_ he thought to himself. That's when it dawned on him as to what he should play. His mind made up, henodded his head to set a beat for himself to begin before playing the song that fit how he felt right now. After playing for a moment, he began singing to his own playing.

"_Mirror, tell me something,_

_Tell me who's the loneliest of all."_

He paused for a moment, before picking up his playing like he had practiced.

"_Mirror, tell me something,_

_Tell me who's the loneliest, of all._

_Fear what's inside me,_

_Tell me can a heart be turned to stone?"_

By now, he was engrossed with his music, and didn't notice that someone was approaching him. Instead, his fingers danced the patterns they had memorized after practicing since the beginning of the year.

"_Mirror mirror, what's behind you?_

_Save me from the things I see_

_I can keep it from the world, _

_Why won't you let me hide from me?"_

As he kept sang, he didn't realize someone joined him in his singing.

"_Mirror, mirror, tell me something,_

_Who's the loneliest of all?"_

That's when the second voice stopped singing with him.

"_I'm the loneliest of all…"_

As he finished the song, his unnoticed guest applauded him. "That was a wonderful performance," he was told by a familiar cultured voice to his right.

He turned in that direction in shock. "Weiss?! When did you get there?"

He heard a giggle. "Around the third verse," she told him amusedly. "I had no idea you played piano, let alone so well." She sat down beside him, so he scooted over while feeling a bit of warmth on his cheeks. _She's awfully close._

"Oh, I guess I was so focused that I didn't notice you were here then," he awkwardly chuckled. "So, what are you doing around here?"

"Well, I tried forcing Ruby to study today, but she vanished when I went to the bathroom." She breathed a heavy sigh and he 'saw' he cross her arms in annoyance. "So I went to look for her, but instead found someone playing the song I performed at my concert before coming to Beacon." She smiled and took his right hand, causing him to tense up at the contact and feel his cheeks get even hotter. "You have a wonderful voice Leaf."

"T-thanks Weiss," he choked out. _Come on, Leaf! Stop being a coward! What would Vio do?!_ Taking a deep breath, he steeled his resolve and smiled a bit to the Schnee heiress. "I tend to be sensitive to sound, so I wound up learning to play the piano and singing on my own."

"Impressive," she said while giving a slight squeeze to his hand. "So, do you know how to play any other songs?"

"Actually, yes," he said, excited that the heiress was interested in one of his passions. What he didn't realize was that the heiress had cheeks as red as Ruby's cloak and was silently cursing her leader as well as thanking her.

**Album (Starts after Leaf's discussion with her)**

Stepping out of the room with a messenger bag over her shoulder, the white haired girl met up with her fellow hammer-wielder in the hall. "Hey Nora, you ready to go?"

The red-head nodded while bouncing in place. "Yup! I am _so_ ready!"

Album nodded. "I can see that," she told him. She looked at Nora with a semi-annoyed expression. "And you brought Ren with you because?"

Nora looked at her partner with a silly grin. "Oh! I felt we could use some of his awesome ninja skills on your top-secret mission!"

"Also, Jaune and Pyrrha were going to try to bridge the awkwardness from yesterday morning, and I didn't want to be all on my lonesome," explained the dark-haired boy.

Album made a thoughtful face at that, and nodded. "Alright, seems legit." She then pointed at him with a scowl. "But if you do ANYTHING to jeopardize our mission, I will end you, got it?"

"Completely," he said with a nod. "Now, what exactly is this mysterious mission?"

She started walking backwards down the hall. "Follow," she whispered while moving her arms. Nora eagerly skipped down the hall after the white-haired girl. The male member of the trio rolled his eyes before following after the two girls. As they left the building, they kept walking towards the airship dock. "Basically, I planted some bugs in CRDL's and my own team's rooms to get dirt on the guys. Vio found out on accident, so he's going into town to get an emp unit to wipe out my bugs. So, I got this," she said while holding up her bag.

"And in the bag is…?" asked Ren.

"A self-designed emp unit. Instead of giving off the usual pulse, it will instead project a message of me taunting him over out-smarting me," explained Album. "That way, I can get a serious rise out of aggravating him."

"Sounds rather pointless to me," commented the only male in the trio. "If the four of you are supposed to be a well-organized team, why would you do things like that to him?"

"Because it's fun, Ren," she replied snarkily. "Besides, it's not like my team has had to do anything as a team yet. So who cares if I keep pranking him?" As she quickened her pace, the two members of JNPR shared a worried look over her statement.

**(Down in Vale)**

It wasn't long until the trio made it to the only store in Vale to sell what Vio was looking for, and like the airship, they were just opening. As the sign on the door changed to 'Open', the trio hid behind a bench and trashcan… well, the girls did. Ren stood there looking at the two like they were crazy… well, more so than usual.

"Alright," whispered Album, "on my mark, we go in. Nora, you and Ren distract them while I go to the emp units. Knowing Vio, he'll go for the one that is right towards the end, so I should be able to replace it."

"How should I distract them?" asked the red-head.

"Any way that doesn't kill someone or get us arrested," Ren told her in a deadpan tone.

"Alright then," she said with a determined nod. "Let's go. She leapt over the bench and started running towards the store with Ren following behind her. After the two walked in, Album counted to ten before stealthily walking over to the store.

Walking through the doors, she raised an eyebrow at Nora's "distraction". Said girl had an arm around Ren's neck and had him sitting on his knees in front of her in a corner away from the door. He looked incredibly bored and uncaring, while Nora had a crazier than usual look on her face. "Nobody move, or he gets it!" she yelled angrily while she pulled his head closer. Pointed at his head was… a banana.

"Ma'am, please," the store worker said calmly. "Let the poor boy go, and drop the banana."

"Never!" she yelled angrily. "He is not poor, and I refuse to go until my demands are met!"

"Ma'am, I cannot make you the empress of Slothelvania or get you an audience with the Grand Duke of Pancake Island," he told her in an annoyed tone.

"And why not?" she asked angrily.

"Because both are equally impossible!" he yelled in an exasperated tone.

"Then I'm never leaving!" she yelled loudly, making the other employees cautiously start moving towards her.

Album grinned at her counterpart's actions, and that grin became a full smile when she realized the only other person nearby was a green haired girl with dark skin. She cautiously walked over, but stopped when she saw the other girl was discreetly opening the boxes and putting the units in her bag. After grabbing the last box, she looked around at Nora's antics and froze when she saw Album staring at her. "How much did you see?" she asked her tensely.

"The last five boxes," she replied quietly. "Now while I'm usually supposed to be anti-crime, if you cover for me putting something in one of these boxes, I won't rat you out."

The mystery girl grinned at her and nodded. "I can do you one better." She pointed her thumb over at a camera in the corner. "I took the cameras out a while ago. Feel free to lift at your leisure. I'm sure your friend is doing her job quite well." To answer this, Nora began singing the Vale anthem about pancakes.

"Yeah, Nora's pretty awesome," she said with a nod. "Well, thanks Minty."

"That's not my name," the green-haired girl snapped. "It's Emerald, little Miss Schnee."

Album glared at her. "Don't call me that. I have no relation to Weiss Schnee."

Emerald patted her on the shoulder as she walked by. "Well now we're even," she said with a laugh. "See you around, maybe."

Album watched the strange thief walk out with her bag over her shoulder before looking back at the now empty boxes. _Alright, I've wasted enough time._ The fact that Nora was singing show tunes now proved how little time she had. Grabbing the first box, she popped open the lid and pulled the fake unit out of her bag. Quickly putting the electronic in the wrapping, she slid it back into place. Turning on her heel. She walked towards the door again, her presence unnoticed by the workers.

She waited two minutes outside the store behind the bench. The tracker on Vio's Scroll told her that he would be there in five minutes, so she would have to run soon. Fortunately, Nora and Ren came running out with an angry store owner behind them, so the trio started running like the figurative devil was at their heels… only to get separated while escaping. Realizing she was without her co-conspirators, Album stopped running just in time to almost hit someone walking by.

"Watch where you're going," growled a slightly deep male voice. The speaker was at 5' 5", with a pale complexion, longish black hair and steel grey eyes. He was wearing a green vest with a white undershirt, and tan cloth pants. His shoes were dark brown boots. His outfit was completed with a dark green cloak tied around his neck. He had two medium sized swords with triggers on the handles, each resting on one hip. He was glaring at her despite being slightly shorter than her. "You could have gotten my shoes dirty."

Album just kept staring. _This man…_ "I'm Album," she told him and extended a hand. "Who are you?"

He looked at her weirdly and took notice of her hammer. "My name's Obsidian. I'm here from Vacuo for the exchange program. I take it you're a Huntress in training as well?"

She kept staring at him before realizing he asked her a question. "Oh, yeah. I'm a first year at Beacon."

"Cool," he replied in boredom. He looked at Album for a while longer, before realizing she was still just staring at him. "Later," he said awkwardly as he walked away from her.

After he left, Album stood there on the sidewalk staring into the space where he had been standing. "Yeah, it's a pretty sweet gig up at Beacon," she said mindlessly despite him being gone. "Ok. Bye Obsidian."

"Album! There you are!" yelled Nora as she and Ren approached her from further up the street. "We've been looking everywhere for you! Except, you know… right here."

"We lost the shopkeeper a couple minutes ago, but we didn't realize we had lost you as well," explained Ren. He then noticed the semi-vacant expression on her face. "Is something wrong?" he asked her out of concern.

"I stared perfection in the face," she told him. She then smiled dreamily. "And he was gorgeous." Ren and Nora shared a look of confusion before getting behind the girl.

"Come on Album," Ren told her. "Let's get you back to the academy."

**Omake: Weiss' day (Because you'd probably complain otherwise)**

_The white haired woman sat behind her desk in her office. She had inherited the SDC from her father ten years ago after graduating, and was now the head of the world's leading Dust Company. As she finished signing the budgeting documents, she took a sip from her tea, savoring the warmth from the drink. As she set the cup down, a ring came from her desk phone. "Yes?" she answered after pushing the red button on the display._

"_Miss Schnee, you have some personal guests here to see you," her secretary said politely._

_Weiss smiled, knowing who was here. "Send them all in," she told her assistant. _

_As she stood up, the door opened. "Auntie Weiss!" yelled three young voices as two little girls and a little boy ran to the woman and clung to her legs._

_She laughed as she knelt down and hugged all three children. "Hello you three," she said happily._

"_Weiss!" There was a blur of rose petals before the rich woman was tackled by her partner. Even though she was 29 and a mother, Ruby was as hyper as ever._

"_Rubes, let her go," laughed Yang as she picked up her younger sister. As Blake helped Weiss to her feet, she set Ruby down. "Hey Weiss, long time no see," the blonde said while hugging her friend. _

"_It's good to see you Weiss," Blake, without her bow, told her. "Ruby and the kids were antsy to see you."_

"_I'd imagine," she said with a laugh. "Where's Vio?"_

"_Right here, Princess," he called. He wrapped an arm around both Blake and Yang's waists. _

"_I thought I said not to call me that," she growled._

"_C'mon, Auntie Weiss," whined Ruby's daughter._

"_I think it's fitting, Mother," came a new little voice. Startled, Weiss looked to her left and saw a small boy with bright green hair and sky blue eyes. What shocked her were the black ears coming out of his short hair._

"_So do I, my lovely wife," said a new male voice behind her. She turned around and saw a pair of black glasses framed by forest green hair. There was a loving smile on his face. _

"_Leaf," she said breathlessly. Not realizing why, she threw her arms around his neck and leaned towards him. As their lips were about to meet, she heard Ruby's voice yelling her name._

* * *

Hearing Ruby yell her name, the heiress shrieked in shock, headbutting Ruby in the process. "Ow!" both girls yelled.

"Geez, Weiss, are you that angry we ruined your fantasy?" asked Yang with a teasing smirk.

"What are you going on about?" she muttered as she rubbed her forehead.

"You were moaning Leaf's name in your sleep," Blake told her with a grin.

As Weiss sputtered indignantly, Yang pushed Ruby off the bed so she could lean in towards the now blushing whitette. "So? What were you dreaming of doing exactly?"

"Sure, ignore your leader's pain," groaned Ruby.

"It's none of your concern whether or not I was dreaming of Leaf!" snapped Weiss.

"So you were dreaming of him," commented Blake.

Weiss screamed in aggravation. A couple hours later, after dressing and dealing with Yang's teasing, the heiress finally decided to make Ruby improve her grades. Without so much as a word to Yang, she dragged her leader to the library. It was going as well as she expected, until she went to the bathroom. When she got back, there was no sign of Ruby.

"Just typical," she muttered when she found her leader missing. Instead, she found a hastily-written note from Ruby.

_Dear Weiss, I don't know what's going on with you today, but I hope you work out your feelings for Leaf. Your bestest best friend, Ruby Rose: Your Best Friend._

Weiss crumpled the note before storming out of the library in search of the hyper girl. _Feelings for Leaf,_ she mentally scoffed. _That's nonsense. I don't have feelings for him. He's a common orphan, I'm a rich heiress. I'm human and he's…_ She stopped herself, realizing she was about to have the kind of racist thoughts she was trying to get rid of. _But… It would never work… Would it?_ She was dragged out of her thoughts when she heard a very familiar song being played nearby. "Is that…?"

She walked quickly to the source of the music, and was shocked to find Leaf playing _Mirror Mirror_ by heart. She was silent initially, amazed at the quality of his voice and skill on his electric keyboard. She was so amazed that she joined him in singing, but quickly stopped when she realized why he would be playing this song. Hearing the ending lines of the song with such heart, she felt her own heart practically shatter.

_Is he really so lonely?_ She thought back to everything Ruby did to befriend her and how friendly she was to everyone. _Time to take a page from her book,_ thought Weiss as she began applauding Leaf's performance. When she sat down beside him and they began talking music, she had one thought. _Ruby Rose, I hate you and love you._

**Elsewhere**

As Ruby happily devoured the chocolate chip cookies she… appropriated from the cafeteria. As she started her third plate, she sneezed heavily. "Weird… I feel like someone is thinking about me. But who?"


	15. Date Night

**Vio- me**

**Leaf- Remvis**

**Nudar – HunterPyros**

**Album- AnamisL1130**

**I own nothing**

**Date Night**

Vio sat staring straight ahead into empty space. At the front of the room, Port was rambling on about how he killed an Ursa as a little boy. His team wasn't really listening to him (what student in his class did listen to his stories?), so he was given a rare reprise of being able to stare into space and not worry about keeping them under control. Well, it was peaceful until a folded piece of paper from the row below them hit him in the face. Looking down in front of him, he found the paper was folded into a neat triangle. Opening it up, he was greeted by Yang's hand writing. _White or yellow?_ He looked down at the blonde and saw her looking expectantly at him. He motioned with his head to Weiss in confusion.

The blonde girl quickly shook her head and tore another piece of paper from her notebook. Quickly writing something, she folded it up and threw it at Vio. It bounced off his face and made his eye twitch in aggravation. He picked the note up and unfolded it. _No not the Ice Queen or me. I mean which color do you prefer more?_

He turned the note over and jotted down his reply before handing it to her. _Why?_

She tore out another piece of paper and threw her answer at him, chuckling as it bounced off his face. He snatched it off his desk and read it over. _I'm trying to decide what to wear for our date tomorrow. Actually, what's your favorite color?_

He gave her a 'Really?' stare before grabbing a lock of his hair and pulling it to the side as if to say 'purple'. Yang made a face of understanding as if saying 'Oh' and nodded. He flipped the note over and wrote 'WHY' on the back. Before balling it up and throwing it at Yang and getting it stuck in her hair. After she unballed it, she read his answer and got another piece, much to Weiss' annoyance. She wrote her answer and threw it at Vio. Before it reached his face, a pale hand shot out and intercepted the paper.

Leaf 'looked' at Vio as he put the paper in front of his partner. "Please stop throwing paper back and forth. It gets quite distracting," he said quietly yet firmly.

Nodding to the Faunus boy, Vio unfolded the note and blushed when he read it. _Ok. Just trying to decide on what color underwear I should wear on our date._ He gave Yang as flat a look as he could manage, but she smiled cheekily at him before blowing him a kiss. He rolled his eyes and tried to at least look like he was listening to Professor Port's… riveting… stories… Fortunately, he was saved from falling asleep in boredom when the bell rang, telling them they could leave class.

"Oh, well I suppose the thrilling conclusion will have to wait until next class," he said regretfully. As the teenagers all started getting up, he quickly called out to them. "Remember, we have a test on Monday about the weaknesses in a Death Stalker's armor!"

As RWBY, JNPR, and VNLA walked to their sparring class with Goodwitch, Yang latched on to Vio's arm. "Hey Vio, did you think about what I asked you?"

"I'm not dignifying your question with an answer," he told her with as straight a face as possible when Yang was rubbing her chest against his forearm.

"Aw c'mon," she said playfully as she clutched his arm tighter, making his bones almost creak from her grip.

Blake whacked her partner over the head. "Yang, stop Harassing Vio like that. He's not your boyfriend and we agreed to share him."

"Yet, Blake," Yang said ominously. "He's not our boyfriend, _yet."_

"Both of you need to stop acting so immaturely," snapped Weiss from beside Leaf. Vio smirked when he noticed the two were discreetly holding hands.

"Like you, Princess?" he asked teasingly. "You seem to be pretty schoolgirl crush with Leaf right now, if I say so."

She sputtered indignantly as Leaf reddened. The two immediately let go of each other's hands and the two stood about a foot apart. The other members of VNLA and most of JNPR and RWBY laughed at their expense and embarrassment.

-The next night-

The other members of VNLA sat around, annoyed at Vio and how meticulous he was. Over the course of the day, he had been making calls to the restaurant to confirm his reservation as well as to a cab service for driving him and the girls around Vale. And that's not counting him triple checking that the airship ferry would still be running at the appropriate times (they were. Apparently some of the fourth years liked to go down to the city and party on weekends, so the ferry workers got paid overtime to get them back to the academy in one piece.) Currently, the Black heir was going through his section of the closet looking at his clothing selection. Album groaned as their leader took a suit out before putting it right back. "Vio, I swear to Oum! Choose something already! You're unbearable!"

"Yeah man, you're taking longer than most of the divas from Sanctum," added Nudar as he looked up from his textbook.

"Well sorry I want to look nice for my first actual date," he snapped. With a huff, he grabbed a casual suit, a dress shirt, and a tie before heading into the bathroom. When he came out ten minutes later, the two members with sight raised their eyebrows. Vio was wearing a black blazer with violet patterning on the cuffs and hem and his crest on the right lapel (**A/N: A crescent moon with a sword between the points)**. Under that was a royal purple button-up shirt with a black and silver tie. The shirt was tucked into a pair of durable-looking black pants that had the same purple patterning on the hems and around the pockets. Completing his ensemble was a pair of black combat boots he then grabbed from the closet.

"I thought you were getting dressed for a date, not choosing a new combat outfit," Album told him in confusion.

"I am!" he snapped.

She made a hum of thought as she studied him before walking over to him. She untucked his shirt (much to his annoyance) and pulled the tie off of him. "There. Undo the top button and you're good."

He did so with a huff as he glared at her. "And you know this how?" he demanded.

"Because Yang and I have similar tastes in how our men should dress," she told him. "With obvious differences of course like how little she wants you to be wearing and what I feel would make a man look amazing beyond belief."

"You mean cravats?" asked Nudar. "Cuz I've seen you on your scroll staring at pictures of guys wearing cravats."

"They're just so amazing!" she gushed, tormenting her leader losing precedence in regards to talking about neckwear. "I mean, the ruffles, the way that they look around a handsome guy's neck…"

"I'm going to go now," Vio told them as he moved towards the door. "The girls and I should get going if we want to make it to our reservation."

"Have fun man!" Nudar encouraged.

Leaf waved to him with a reassuring smile. "Enjoy your date, Vio."

"Use protection and no hickeys!" called Album as he closed the door. Vio promptly reopened the door to flip her off before reclosing it, much to her amusement.

The rich teen took a deep breath as he walked to the dorm room next to them. Once there, he knocked on their door three times. "Just a minute!" came Yang's frantic yell followed by a slamming door. When the door opened, his fellow leader greeted him.

"Hey Vio. Cool new combat outfit." Ruby said cheerfully as she let him in, not paying attention to his annoyed groan about his clothing. "Yang and Blake will be out in a second. They're just finishing getting ready."

"Ok," he told her. He looked at the (still unstable looking) bunk beds and saw Weiss studying. "Hey Weiss," he said with a nod.

"Hello Vio," she replied curtly.

"Ahem," came Ruby's voice. He looked at her and saw she had her hands on her hips and was trying to look as menacing as possible despite being five inches shorter than him. "Listen Vio, Yang and Blake are my teammates and friend-slash-sister. If I hear you did anything less than gentlemanly to them-"

"Ruby, calm down," he said as he rolled his eyes. "It's a first date, and I'm the son of a family that is on par with the Schnees. I won't be ungentlemanly."

"But if I so much as think that-"

"Ruby, leave Vio alone," Yang said in amusement as she and Blake stepped out of the bathroom. The boy couldn't help but stare at his dates. Yang's outfit consisted of a casual, strapless yellow dress that came to her knees with a white sash around her waist and a gold-looking purse over her shoulder, and some short white heels. For her makeup, she was wearing some soft-pink lipstick, dark mascara and some yellow glitter eyeliner. Her hair, however, was just as uncontrollable as ever.

Blake on the other hand, was wearing a black dress that covered her neck and chest but left her arms and shoulders exposed. Her dress went to her ankles on the left side but the knee on the right side. Unlike Yang, she was wearing a pair of black flats and dark grey pantyhose. She held a small black handbag with some purple stones in the shape of her emblem on it as she looked a little nervous. As usual, her bow was firmly in place. She had been more modest in her makeup and only had a bit of smoky eyeshadow on. Both girls lacked their weapons like Vio did.

"Wow," he said breathlessly. "You both look amazing."

Yang flashed him a smile as Blake blushed a little. "Likewise, Vio." She sized him up with that smirk still in place. "I like what I see."

"Can you go now?" asked Weiss. "I'm pretty sure you have a reservation to make."

Vio went wide-eyed at the heiress's comment. "Oh crap. Thanks Weiss." He held an arm out to both girls. "Shall we?"

Smiling widely, Yang latched on to his right arm, eliciting a grunt of pain from her force as Blake took his hand. "We'll be back later, you two," the blonde brawler told her teammates as the three of them headed out the door. "Don't wait up, and Weiss?" The heiress looked at Yang. "If you invite Leaf over, stay out of my bed." She quickly closed the door as Weiss threw her book at them. "C'mon you guys," she told her partner and their date. "We've got a date to enjoy!"

xXLine BreakXx

Album stared intently at her Scroll. Three blips were moving away from the dorms on her map and towards the airship docks. Once they departed, she got up. "Alright! Who's up for stalking Vio on his date?"

"Album, no." She and Nudar looked over and saw Leaf 'glaring' at her. "I don't care how much 'fun' it'll be, I don't care how much blackmail it could produce, and I _certainly_ don't care how bored you're going to be tonight. Do. Not. Follow. Him."

"But Leaf-"

"No!" he interrupted her. "Vio is probably my best friend, and Blake is almost like a sister to me. I will not let you ruin their night."

Nudar patted his partner on the shoulder as she started sulking. "Album, trust me. Nothing interesting will happen there tonight."

-In the City-

The three teens got off the airship in a wonderful mood. Both girls, for once, simply settled for holding Vio's hands as they walked out of the terminal. "Oh, our ride is here," he said cheerfully. Sure enough, a black cab was waiting for the three students with the rider waving for them.

"Violerous Black?" he asked the male student.

"That's me," he replied curtly. Nodding, the man opened the door for them. "Ladies first," he said as Yang went to get in. Smirking, she pulled him and Blake into the cab, eliciting yelps of shock out of both of them. Once they settled themselves and they were buckled in, the driver started the engine and began driving.

"Where to?" he asked them.

Vio quickly told him the address, getting a nod in response. As he sat back again the seat, Yang held his hand a little tighter and leaned her head on his shoulder. Vio smiled at the change of pace, and felt Blake mirroring her partner's actions. The three sat comfortably in the back seat until the cab came to a stop. The girls exited through either side of the car while Vio paid the cabby for his services. Once he got out of the car, he allowed the two girls to link arms with him; Yang on the left and Blake on the right. He led the two members of RWBY into the restaurant and up to the garcon.

"Do you have a reservation?" he asked the three students.

"Yes," the teen replied. "Under the name Black."

The man pulled out a book and skimmed through it quickly. "Ah, Mr. Black, party of three. Right this way," he told the trio as he grabbed three menus. The waiter led them through the nicely lit restaurant until they arrived at a nicely-set table near a corner. Two red-cushioned chairs were at the corner with a third facing them. Vio let go of the two girls' arms and ducked behind the table, drawing both chairs out for them. Yang smiled and pecked him on the cheek while Blake gave him a warm smile. The slightly blushing young man helped both girls push their chairs in before going to sit opposite them.

The waiter handed each of the students a menu before giving a half-bow. "I'll be back soon for your drink orders." With that, he left the three of them to look over the menus. As they quietly discussed what looked good and what didn't, the three of them didn't notice a guy in a black suit with a red tie and sunglasses pull out a Scroll.

"Boss, that blonde chick from before, the one that trashed the club, I found her," he quietly said into the phone. "Here's the place…"

The waiter returned to the unaware students. "What would you each like to drink, this evening?"

Vio nodded to the girls to order first. "I'll have a raspberry iced tea," Blake told him.

He nodded as he wrote it down and looked at Yang. "Strawberry Sunrise," she told him. "No ice. Oh!" she quickly added. "And one of those little umbrellas."

Vio raised an eyebrow with a smirk. "Already breaking out the cocktails?" he asked with a chuckle. He looked back to the waiter with a composed smile. "I'll have a small glass of your finest Atlesian Vodka **(A/N: I do not condone underage drinking. So do not follow any of Vio's acts as example)**. The man nodded with an amused smirk before looking them over again. "Would you like some more time to decide on your meals?"

"Yes please," he told the waiter.

"I'll be back with your drinks." With that, he walked away to the kitchens.

"Starting a little strong, aren't we Vio?" Blake asked him with a raised eyebrow as she put down her menu.

He laughed a bit at the raven-haired girl's comment and Yang's playful stare. "We Atlesians are basically born with alcohol in our blood. Weiss and I had cheap vodka in our baby formula and wine in our grape juice." He folded his menu and placed it down on the table before folding his hands. "On top of that, I've been drinking socially at my father's parties since I turned fifteen."

Yang laughed at that as the waiter brought over their drinks. "An iced tea for you ma'am, one Strawberry Sunrise, and one vodka." He said each drink as he gave each teen their beverage. "Have you decided on your meals?" he asked them, a little wide-eyed as Vio downed a mouthful of his vodka right off the bat.

"I'll have the garlic steak, medium rare, with the baked potato, please. Extra cheese on the potato," Yang told him. The waiter quickly wrote that down before looking to Blake.

"The baked salmon," she asked politely. "With the steamed greens and salted garden squash." He jotted down her order and turned to the one male at the table.

Vio smiled and handed his menu. "I would love to have the manicotti with a small Caesar Salad on the side please."

The waiter wrote down Vio's order before folding up his notepad. "I will return with your food." With that he turned away.

"So Vio, how do you like my outfit?" Yang asked him with a bit of a blush on her cheeks.

"You look beautiful," he told her with a sincere smile as he reached across the table and gave her hands a reassuring squeeze. He smiled at Blake as he repeated the gesture, earning a deep blush from her. "You're both absolutely gorgeous."

-Entrance to the restaurant-

A group of men in black suits walked in through the entrance. "Excuse me sir, but do you have…" his voice died off when he saw the large weapon over the leader's shoulders.

"We're looking for a girl. She's got blonde hair that looks like some sort of mane." To emphasize his point, he showed the garcon a picture. "Now I know she's here. So where is she?"

The man shakily pointed towards the back of the restaurant and stood there as the man and his followers pushed past him. The large group stalked through the nice restaurant until they saw the bane of their existence. She was sitting with some other pretty girl in black and some guy with purple hair in a suit. Much to his luck, she didn't have those gauntlets of hers on. Walking over to the table, he coughed. When she looked up, she went from annoyed to slightly worried. "Oh, hey Junior."

"Hey yourself, Blondie," sneered the leader of the Axe gang.

"Yang?" the boy asked in confusion. "Who is this guy?"

"I'm the guy your girlfriend here screwed over when she trashed my club and chased off all my customers for a pointless headhunt." Junior lifted the large bat resting on his shoulders intimidatingly. "And now I'm here for a little payback."

Vio stood up and held his hands up in a sign of peace. "Look man, let's just talk this out."

"No. We're not talking," Junior told him as he towered over him. "I know you're the heir to the Black family's fortune. So we're gonna ransom you off to your parents and after we beat our payback out of blondie, she and your other little girlfriend are gonna start keeping my boys company when they get lonely." His men chuckled and shared a couple high fives as the two girls looked furious yet concerned about their lack of weapons. "You got that, rich boy?"

Vio's grin faltered a little, but he straightened up a little. "Junior, was it?" he asked. He got a confused nod in response. "Let me just say one thing."

"Alright. What is it?"

His smile became a smirk as he motioned for Junior to lean in a little. When he did, Vio socked him in the middle of his face. The larger man fell back, with his nose obviously broken. Vio stamped his boots down on Junior's groin as he quickly grabbed the man's bat. With an angry scowl as the man squealed in agony, he hefted the bat over his shoulder like he did with Black Bolt. "Yang, Blake. I'm afraid our date will have to be put on hold for now."

The girls stared at him in shock for a moment before Yang grinned and got up. "It's alright, Vio. I like this sort of date even better." The members of the Axe Gang stared at her in terror as she got up and knocked one who was holding a shotgun. She promptly used it to take out another grunt. Taking his pistol, she tossed it to Blake, who caught it easily before using it to dispatch some of the other grunts. Unfortunately, the restaurant quickly devolved into chaos as the other patrons began running to escape the ensuing violence. Seeing the opportunity, the remaining grunts began flipping tables and using them as shields from the girls' guns.

Vio and the girls quickly followed suit by overturning their table and taking cover behind it, with Blake and Yang taking quick shots when able. "Damn, why'd I have to grab a bat of all things?" cursed Vio.

Yang looked the bat over quickly. "If that's really Junior's bat, it's also a rocket launcher," she told him before firing a couple rounds at another table.

"Not really helpful in here," he muttered. He peaked around the table quickly. "Alright, we're gonna push forwards on my mark, ok?"

"Right."

"Whatever you say."

"Blake, stay behind me and Yang. We'll be your shields. Yang, give me that shotgun." Getting nods, he traded the bat for the gun and cocked it for the next shot. "MARK!" The two girls leapt over the table while Vio charged from around the side. He quickly raised a barrier with his Semblance as he and Yang lead their small charge with him and Blake opening fire at the make-shift barriers. Yang barreled ahead of her friends and began swinging the blunt weapon, sending the gang members flying into the walls.

One gang member got up and went to swing his axe at Yang's unprotected back, but Vio slammed the butt of the now empty gun into the back of the criminal's head. As the man dropped, Blake took out the recovering ones with incapacitating shots. The blonde herself was having an absolute blast by bashing countless gang members over the head with the gigantic bat. Within minutes of the combat erupting, the trio of students were panting from the frantic fight, but the gang members were incapacitated and awaiting the police. When the officers arrived, they were quick to relieve the three Hunters-in-training of the Axe Gang's weapons.

"And you're positive that is the whole reason the gang members attacked you?" asked an officer for the hundredth time.

"Yes," Yang replied with a heavy sigh. "I may or may not have ticked them off a couple months back, so when they saw me here, I guess they came for payback on me."

"Well at least we know the why," muttered the officer as he wrote something down. Blake moved closer to Vio as some reporters arrived, the camera flashes and recording spotlights creating an infrequent level of light. "We'll give you three a ride back to the Beacon Ferry," he told them. "And we're sending the bill for all the damages to your school."

The teens nodded and were shepherded into a squad car that quickly drove through the small crowd of reporters on the way to the ferry. After they were deposited there and boarded the airship, they finally broke the silence that for some reason had befallen them. "Well," Yang said awkwardly. "That was a thing."

"Yup," Blake said with equal awkwardness.

Vio nodded before looking at each of his dates. Licking his thumb, he rubbed a spot of dirt on Yang's left cheek. "Sorry," he told her with slight embarrassment when she also blushed at the contact. "There was a dirt spot from everything we went through."

"Tell me about it," complained the blonde as Blake chuckled at them. "I finally wear this dress, and it gets completely ruined."

"Something tells me we won't be wearing these dresses any time soon," lamented Blake. Sure enough, the firefight had ruined both girls' dresses, as they had several tears in them and were fraying at the ends and along each tear. "Although, your suit is certainly intact."

"Wait, I thought this was his new combat outfit and he was trying to be casual?" Yang asked in confusion, although the glint in her eye said otherwise.

"You know what, since everyone thinks this is a combat outfit, why not?!" he snapped exhaustedly as he threw his arms in the air. "To be honest, I'm glad we got off with just a slap on the wrist."

The girls laughed at his annoyance over the outfit. The three quickly fell into a more comfortable silence until the airship docked back at Beacon. After exiting the ship, they walked back to the dorms, chatting happily about anything as the two girls clung to Vio's arms. It wasn't until they reached Team RWBY's dorm that they fell silent.

"Well, getting attacked by gangsters aside, I had a lovely evening with you girls," Vio told them. "It's a shame we had to cut it short so early."

"I know," Yang said sadly. "I'd have loved to spend more time with you."

"Same here," agreed the Faunus. "I really hoped my first date ever would go a lot differently than it did," she added.

"Maybe some other time," he told them. He placed a kiss on Blake's forehead, causing her to blush deeply. "Goodnight, Blake."

He went to repeat the action on Yang (despite her being slightly taller in heels), but she put a hand in his face. "No way, tiger," she told him playfully. "_This_ is how you say goodnight to a girl." With that, she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him into a deep kiss. He was so shocked at her actions, that she forced her tongue into his mouth. As Vio began returning the kiss, he felt it: the sparks everyone talked about. He quickly returned the kiss full force and felt as though he were flying in a star. After what felt like an eternity, Yang pulled away from him, her face rivaling Ruby's cloak in color. "Wow," she breathed.

He could only nod. "Yeah," he whispered.

"Goodnight," she quickly told him as she quickly opened and slammed the door to her dorm.

Blake chuckled a little at her partner's actions before looking at the still blushing leader. Smiling with her own blush, the black haired girl placed a soft kiss to his lips. It wasn't as deep or passionate as Yang, but her chaste kiss produced the exact same reaction in Vio's head. When they parted, she went to open her own door. "Goodnight, Vio." With that, she went into her dorm. As the black haired-Faunus walked in to Team RWBY's dorm, she raised an eyebrow at Yang laying on her bed.

"Blake, what happened?!" demanded Weiss. She had a look of angry concern as she got in her teammate's face. "Yang came in here blushing, she wouldn't say a word to either of us, and your dresses are in complete disarray-"

"What happened?!" yelled Ruby as she grabbed Blake's arms.

She shook off her leader's hands and looked at the two girls. "You want to know what happened?" she asked them. She smirked at their eagerness and Weiss' concerned look. "Vio is officially our boyfriend. That's what." Leaving them with shell shocked expressions, she went back to her bed and began to undo her bow. As she did so, she noticed her partner looking at her with a dazed expression and an unspoken question. "Yes Yang. I felt the sparks." Ruby and Weiss, having recovered their voices, launched into dozens more questions for the Bumblebee duo.

-VNLA-

As Vio walked into the room, his teammates looked up at him. "Do we want to know why your suit looks messed up?" asked Album.

The leader rolled his eyes. "It wasn't like that," he told her. "We were attacked by some gang that has some beef with Yang." Hearing this, the three looked at him in shock about how his date went. "Bottom line: I don't think we're allowed back at that restaurant and Ozpin is probably going to be forced to cover all the damage we caused."

Album gave her partner a death glare. "Nudar. You said nothing interesting would happen. And what happened exactly?" With a roar, she tackled him and the two devolved into a fist fight on the floor as they yelled at each other.

Shaking his head at Album's antics, he grabbed his pajamas off his bed. As he did so, Leaf looked at him with a knowing look. "Congratulations on your new relationship, Vio. I wish you the best of luck."

The rich teen smiled (not that it was seen) and nodded to his partner. "Thank you, Leaf."

-In a dark warehouse-

A silver-haired teen walked into his boss's hideout while humming a cheerful tune. "Where have you been?!"

Sighing, he turned and saw his green-haired partner stomping towards him with a pissed-off look. "Hello, to you too, Emerald," he replied in his common bored tone.

"If you were out causing trouble-"

"Relax," he told her with a roll of his eyes. "I was just seeing how _he_ would do against the Axe gang."

"Mercury, you didn't," she told him with a wary look.

"What if I did?" he told her with a shrug as he turned and began walking away. "It's not like Junior can't bail himself out."

"Cinder needs him _out_ of prison, you idiot!"

"Then _she'll_ bail him out! All good!" he said as he spread his arms to indicate the problem was solved. Mercury shook his head and sighed as he kept walking. "So what happened while I was out?" he asked lazily.

Emerald glared at him before pulling out a piece of paper. "The White Fang agents we have out on the streets found out we have a coward in their ranks that wants out. Cinder wants him taken care of, and Torchwick is supposed to stop him, but hasn't yet."

"And you're suggesting we do it to show him up?" he asked with a quirked eyebrow. She smirked and nodded to him. He thought about it briefly before shrugging. "Eh. Why not? What's the guy's name?"

"His name's Tucson."


	16. The Best Day Ever

**I AM ALIVE! I'm so sorry this took so long, but I've been working crazy hours at work, so I've barely been able to sit down to write, and when I can, I just can't focus properly. But with the holiday season over, I should have more time to work on my three main fics. Also, with Volume 3 underway, I now need to go back to re-do the flashback about Winter, and I'm going to have to do some work with Mercury's back story given episode seven… Good thing this is essentially AU. So, without further ado, let's get on to Best Day Ever!**

**Vio: Me**

**Nudar: Hunter Pyros**

**Leaf: Remvis**

**Album: AnamisL1130**

**I own nothing!**

The silver-haired teen leaned against the wall of the building while his partner asked directions. When the green-haired girl walked by, he smirked at her. "I knew you were lost," he teased her.

"Mercury," she growled. She pointed a freshly stolen wallet at him. "I will seriously _pay_ you to be quiet."

"That's not your money," he told her with a shake of the head.

"But it could be _yours,_ in exchange for five minutes of silence," she offered with a hopeful smile.

He looked up in thought. He was pretty sure Emerald didn't know about who his father really was, so she probably didn't know he was a terrible person to bribe since he didn't see the appeal to excessive money. "Mmm… No deal," he said with another shake of the head. With a growl, she took the Lien out of the wallet and threw the piece of leather on the ground before storming off. "Whatever," he scoffed at the tanned girl. "You want me."

The duo kept walking down the streets of Vale as the sun shined brightly above them. "So how much further?" groaned Mercury.

"A couple more blocks," replied the girl.

"This place is so dull," complained Mercury as he looked around the extremely cheerful and sunny city. Sure it wasn't like Atlas, but he wasn't a fan of Vale either.

"I like it," Emerald replied optimistically. "Tall buildings, diverse culture-"

"And nice dopey people who are easy to pickpocket," he interrupted as he passed her.

"That's every city," she told him in amusement.

"Oh Emerald, master thief, please don't take my money," he mocked in his best damsel-in-distress voice. "I barely have enough to get by." She growled at him again before stomping past him. He stared at her toned back with annoyed frown. "You're no fun today."

Before long, the partners reached the store they were heading to: Tucson's Book Trade. Entering, Emerald went straight towards the counter while Mercury began browsing the shelves. The girl rang the little bell on the counter and the two shared a look.

"Be right there!" came a deep voice. A large man exited the doors behind the counter with his arms filled with books. "Welcome to Tucson's Book Trade: home to every book under the sun. How may I-" He froze for a moment when he saw the two teens. "How may I help you?" he asked them.

"Just browsing," Mercury called lazily as he slammed a hardcover book shut.

"Actually, I was wondering something," Emerald told him. "Do you have any copies of _The Thief and the Butcher_?"

"Yes we do," the man told her.

"Great," she replied.

There was an awkward silence. "Would you like a copy?" he asked.

"No. Just wondering," she told him innocently. Mercury slammed another book shut. "Oh, how about _Violet's Garden,_ in paperback?"

Mercury suppressed a groan at that particular book and settled for a frown. Of all the book titles she could have chosen, it had to be that one. He _knew_ he would eventually regret telling Emerald about _him._ Nevertheless, he found the exact book in paperback. "He's got it," he called over. Then he noticed its companion. "Hardback too." He pulled the book off the shelf and looked at a random page.

"Ooh, options _are _nice," she mused with a thoughtful look.

"Eh, no pictures." He slammed it shut. "Hey!" he called to Tucson as he looked at him. "Do you have any comics?"

"Near the front," replied the yellow-eyed man.

"Oh, no wait, what about… _Third Crusade_?" Emerald asked him menacingly.

"Um…" Mercury looked up from the book he had grabbed. "I don't believe we have that one." The silver teen slammed the book shut, the sound almost echoing in the small shop.

"Oh," he said simply.

"I'm sorry, what's this place called again?" asked Emerald.

"Tucson's Book Trade," replied the man.

"And, you're Tucson?"

"That's right," he hesitantly replied.

"So, I take it you're the one that came up with the catchphrase?"

"Yes," he replied curtly.

"And what was it again?" Mercury asked in a slightly demanding tone.

He let out a heavy sigh. "Tucson's Book Trade: home to every book under the sun."

"EXCEPT, _The Third Crusade,"_ Mercury interjected.

"It- it's just a catch phrase," he defended.

"It's false advertising!" snapped Mercury.

"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, Tucson," Emerald told him darkly as Mercury obscured the rightmost window. "I heard, you plan on leaving. And going all the way to Vacuo." Mercury dimmed another window. "Your brothers in the White Fang wouldn't be happy to hear that, and neither are we." Mercury finished dimming the front windows and slowly walked so he stood behind his partner. "You know who we are, don't you?"

Tucson sighed. "Yes," he said with a tone of resignation.

"And you know why we're here?" Emerald asked with a raised eyebrow.

They got another nod. "Yes." Mercury discreetly tapped his right heel to the floor on a hunch he'd need his trusty boots.

"So… Are you going to fight back?"

There was a long silence from the yellow-eyed man. "YES!" he yelled. Jumping onto the counter, he extended claws from each hand and swung at Emerald. The thief took a step back and got behind male partner. Tucson jumped off the counter with a couple swings, only to go wide-eyed as Mercury raised up his leg. With a firm kick, his foot's gun let out a loud bang as the shot collided with Tucson's head. The resulting red cloud and the somewhat headless corpse hitting the wall were nothing new to the two criminals, but Mercury was surprised when the body slammed into the wall so hard it left a large splatter mark.

After he wiped off his boot and they removed any incriminating evidence, the duo left the book store with Mercury reading the comic he took from the now deceased Faunus. "What's with that?" Emerald asked in an annoyed tone.

Mercury shrugged. "I like the pictures." Behind them, the door slammed shut with a sense of finality.

-Team VNLA-

Teams RWBY and VNLA were all at lunch with JNPR at another table. Vio was currently talking with Weiss about their study strategies, Album was building a cup tower, and Nudar was trying to convince Leaf to attach a gun to his katana. Blake was staring at a notebook and not participating in any conversation and Yang was catching food Nora was throwing to her.

As the cat Faunus stared at a particular page, Yang leaned into her partner's side. "Whatcha reading?"

"Nothing! Just going over some notes from last semester," she told the blonde.

Yang caught a pea from Nora. "La~me!" she sang. Over with JNPR, the ginger laughed a bit.

Vio looked closely at his black-haired girlfriend. He could see slight bags under her eyes, and he couldn't help but feel worried that she wasn't sleeping properly. His thought process was interrupted when an extremely familiar, gigantic, white binder slammed down at the head of the table. Ruby was proudly standing there with a proud look on her face.

"Sisters!" this time to Yang and a little bit to Blake. "Friends!" she declared gesturing to JNPR and VNLA. "Weiss," she said with an iffy face.

"HEY!" snapped said heiress.

"Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream!" Ruby told them in a motivational manner as if she were rallying the troops.

"This'll be good," Yang told the others before catching another pea.

"A dream that one day, the four of us would come together, as a _team_ and have the most fun anybody has ever had, ever!" continued the perky goth in an excited tone.

"Did you steal my binder?!" demanded Weiss. _That explains why I recognized it_.

Ruby gave them a peace sign on each hand. "I am not a crook!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Blake. Teams VNLA and JNPR were paying attention to the all-girl team now.

"I'm talking about kicking off this semester with bang!" Ruby declared excitedly and with as motivational a tone as possible.

"I always kick my semester off with a _Yang_!" added said blonde with a smile and a thumbs up. "Eh? Guys?"

Vio face palmed. "Yang, you may be my girlfriend, but no. Just no." After his statement, the blonde brawler was hit by an apple while Nora 'boo'ed her.

"Look guys, it's been a good two weeks and between more exchange students arriving and the tournament at the end of the year, our second semester is gonna be great!" She became a little more serious as she continued her little speech. "But, classes start back up tomorrow. Which is why I've taken the time to schedule a series of _wonderful _activities for us to do today!"

"I don't know whether to be proud or scared of whatever you have in store," Weiss told her leader in a skeptical tone. As she did so, Album handed Yang an apple and ducked as the blonde brawler hurled it at Nora, missing and hitting a random guy walking by.

"That's actually a good idea," noted Leaf as he 'looked' at Vio. "Guys?"

Vio shrugged as he bit into his apple. "Sure. I'll throw some things together for us to do before the day's over."

"I don't know," Blake told them hesitantly. "I think I might sit this one out."

"Sit out or not, I think that however we spend this last day, we should do it as a team," Weiss told them all firmly. Setting down her afternoon tea, she stood up to address her teammates.

"I got it!" yelled Nora from JNPR's table. Their only warning was a panicked look from Yang after that.

"I for one think that-" *SPLAT!* The white haired heiress never finished her statement as a banana cream pie flew over and landed in her face, making both RWBY and VNLA stare in shock at the pie-faced girl. Ducking cautiously, the eight of them all turned and looked at the other table. Jaune and Pyrrha were shell-shocked at what just happened, and Ren was simply face-palming. Panicking, Nora hastily pointed at her obviously uninvolved partner.

There was a tense silence between the three teams and several others as some students began noticing the actions between the two tables. "I am so checking this off my bucket list," commented Album to nobody in particular. Grabbing Blake's salmon, she hurled the fish at JNPR, which almost hit Ren in the face. In retaliation, Nora pegged a glass of milk that splashed all over Nudar as he drank his soda.

VNLA's blonde stared at his now soaked uniform before setting down his can of soda. Grabbing a hold of the burger on his plate, he pitched it at anyone in JNPR, and hit Pyrrha's shoulder. She responded in kind by throwing her salad at him. At this point, the eight teens scattered from their table by team. JNPR was quick to follow suit in becoming mobile. The other students began ducking and complaining as the three teams of first years began grabbing food off random peoples' plates and throwing them at one another with a combination of anger and amusement. As Jaune failed at hitting the agile cat Faunus with a handful of nachos, he found himself flung against a window by Album, barely registering that Sun and some guy with blue hair were walking by at that moment. By now, team JNPR had begun flipping and piling tables as far from the door as possible and had knocked over the cafeteria's vending machines. As the students not involved in the impromptu melee fled, Team RWBY regrouped closer to the doors while VNLA met up between the two groups with a couple tables forming makeshift barricades.

The three teams were all wearing semi-serious expressions as they got ready for one side to make the first move. Nora's piercing laughter filled the large building, shattering the tense silence. "I'm queen of the castle~! I'm queen of the castle~!" sang the hyper ginger from atop JNPR's table fort.

Ruby slammed a foot down on one of the inexplicable untouched tables with a carton of milk in one hand and her other hand pointed at the two teams before them. "Justice will be swift; justice will be painful!" She crushed the carton as she clenched a fist. "It will be DELICIOUS!" The three other girls let out warcries at their leader's declaration.

"Off with their heads!" ordered Nora. Jumping down, she and her allies began hurling dozens of watermelons at their enemies.

"Yang! Turkies!" ordered Ruby. The blonde followed through and mounted two turkeys on her hands and acted as if she were wearing her beloved Ember Celica.

"Album!" Nodding, the blonde girl tore a leg off a table and stuck into another turkey to replicate a hammer. The two heavy hitters ran forwards and began smashing watermelons out of the air. After dealing with the melons, both girls began the charge with their partners. Yang took Jaune out by hitting him with flying turkeys as Blake began parrying with Pyrrha using baguettes. During this, Vio and Leaf, armed with a large tuna and another baguette respectively, charged the remaining members of RWBY.

Ruby grabbed a tray and deflected Leaf's overhead swing at her. She tried swinging her tray at him, but Leaf flipped over it and smacked her away. Vio took advantage of the separated girls and began making several heavy swings at the unarmed heiress. She nimbly dodged him without use of her Semblance and grabbed a bottle of ketchup. She jumped back, and sprayed the red liquid on the floor. Vio's dodge and the charging Ren fell victim to her makeshift oil slick and tumbled to the ground.

Meanwhile, Ruby jumped over Leaf and used him as a springboard to send herself flying down the main table. Skating down the table, she used the metal tray to send Pyrrha flying into the base of JNPR's 'castle'. Album tried to take Ruby out of the air as she flew back, but the girl easily dodged her attack. Yang ran at her as Nora jumped into the fray with a hammer made out of a watermelon and a pipe from the ceiling. The three girls began fighting relentlessly. Nora ducked past Album's makeshift hammer as Yang delivered a punch to the ginger. Album landed a couple good swings, but Yang grabbed her by her uniform jacket and threw her into the recovering Vio, sending them both into the wall. This left her open to Nora who sent her flying through the ceiling with a single hit.

After sending the female blonde flying, Nora found herself under attack by Nudar, who had armed himself with a large chunk of a table fashioned into a large club-like blade. The blonde boy swung the heavy piece of wood into the melon-less pole, creating a large bend in the piece of metal. Jumping away, she unbent the wood with her bare hands before stabbing the pole into a new melon. She began twirling the hammer around making Nudar go on the defensive. Getting sick of being defensive, Nudar raised his makeshift sword up only to be sent flying towards JNPR's base as Weiss entered the melee with a swordfish. She parried with Nora for a little bit before Nora sent her sailing through the air into a pillar on the far side of the gym.

Witnessing her partner's defeat, Ruby rushed to the heiress with her Semblance, catching her as the pillar fell. "Weiss! Weiss!" she took on a miserable look as she stared at her partner. "Don't leave me... NOOOOOOO!" she screamed dramatically.

Meanwhile, a recovered Leaf went after Blake with his baguette as she grabbed a chain of sausages. She swung the chain as if it were a whip and tried catching Leaf with it. Using his Semblance, the bat Faunus dodged her swings quite easily. Nora wasn't as lucky, and was thrown into a soda machine when the cat Faunus missed the agile bat. Getting a crazy idea, she began tossing cans of soda at the two Faunus. Both teens began dodging the bursting projectiles as Nora failed to hit one of her targets. Pyrrha, however, had another idea. Using her own Semblance, she began controlling all of the cans magnetically. Creating a massive wave of cans, Leaf barely managed to survive by using Blake as a bullet shield to take the entire hit for him. Unable to use her own Semblance in time, the black haired girl slammed into a pillar where she was bombarded by the exploding cans before falling to the ground; defeated.

Ruby glared at the other two teams as they began recovering. Getting into a ready stance, the young leader launched herself forward with her Semblance, rose petals and food trailing behind her. As she traveled across the massive cafeteria, she picked up speed and even tables. Vio, Album, Jaune, and Ren tried to run but were swept up in the tailwind as the perky goth sped by. The remaining four were swept up in no time at all as Ruby jumped in the air and spun like a drill as she barreled towards the far wall. Skidding to a stop, the shockwave from her speed cracked the wall as the eight other students were pinned to the wall from the force. Ruby jumped out of the way with an Aura enhanced jump as the eight teens could only stare in terror as the maelstrom of food coated them from head to toe. As the wave of food ended, she landed on the ground as her eight opponents fell off the wall.

Over at the door, Sun looked to his friend Neptune. "I love these guys." The blue haired teen glared at his Faunus friend since his face and upper chest were purple from the food fight while the monkey didn't have a speck of food on him. The door behind them was slammed open at that moment, and the Deputy Headmistress stormed into the dining hall. Catching a plate of food from flying in her direction with her telekinetic Semblance, she waved her riding crop and quickly cleaned up the room. The tables were reassembled after Nudar and Album had demolished a couple of them and put back in their places. After clearing away any excess food, she glared at the eleven teenagers.

"Children, _please,_" she told them firmly and angrily. "Do not play with your food." As the food-covered teens stared at her, Nora let out a loud belch. Yang promptly fell through the ceiling and shattered the table VNLA had been sitting/standing on. The twelve teens promptly started laughing and joking after her return. Glynda growled angrily at how carefree they all were before she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Let it go, Glynda," assured Ozpin.

She sighed as she looked at the students. "They're supposed to be the protectors of the world." Yang and Blake each shared a quick kiss with Vio as Album and Nora started cheering him on and Weiss started playfully yelling at him.

"And they will be," he assured her. "But their children right now." He looked at the students before back to his right hand. "So why not let them play the part?" He started to walk away. "After all, they won't be able to for long."

**-An abandoned warehouse in Vale-**

Mercury and Emerald casually walked into the White Fang's temporary base of operations. As they walked through the massive warehouse, they saw various grunts moving crates of Dust around and unloading more of their ships. Soon, the duo found the man they were looking for.

"Oh look, she sent the kids again," he said sarcastically. Roman got behind the two and pulled them into headlock hugs. "This is turning out just like the divorce."

The two criminals shuddered at his comment. "Ew," groaned Emerald as she and Mercury forced their way out of his embrace. "Spare us the thought of you procreating."

"It was a joke," he replied hotly. "And _this,_" he held up a folded piece of paper, _"_might just tell me where you two have been all day." Emerald was shocked and checked her pocket frantically. "I'm a professional sweetheart, pay attention. Maybe you'll learn something." He looked at the note and started scowling. "Where did you get this address?" he demanded.

Emerald stepped forwards and glared at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yeah, I would!" he snapped. He pointed at them. "Now, where have you been all day?"

"Cleaning up _your_ problems. One of them anyways," Mercury taunted him. He didn't know why, but annoying people like Roman gave him a degree of satisfaction. Probably because they were too much like his old man.

"I had that under control," growled the red headed man.

"Two packed bags and a ticket outta Vale said otherwise," he quickly replied.

Torchwick pointed his cane at the two of them. "Listen ya little punk," he threatened. "If it were up to me, I'd take you and your little street rat friend here, and I'd-"

"Do what, Roman?" came a very elegant voice. The three looked up at the scaffolding and saw the woman that brought them all together.

"I'd… not… kill them?" he asked hopefully.

"Cinder!" Emerald always seemed to be excited to see the psychopath they called their boss. Mercury could honestly see the appeal from a guy's perspective, but didn't understand Emerald's attachment.

"I thought I made it clear you were to eliminate the would be run-away?" she asked the wanted thief.

"I was going to-" he began, only to be interrupted yet again.

"_He_ was gonna let him escape to Vacuo. Mercury and I decided to take it upon ourselves to kill the rat," bragged Emerald.

Mercury nudged her arm. "I think he was some kind of cat, actually."

"What? Like a puma?" asked the dark skinned girl.

"Yeah! There you go."

"Quiet!" snapped the half-Maiden. "Did I not _specifically _instruct you two to keep your hands clean while in Vale?" Cinder asked them angrily. In the background, Roman was pointing at them and quietly laughing.

Emerald's enthusiasm deflated immediately. "I just thought that-"

"Don't think," snapped Cinder. "Obey." Behind her, Roman pretended to slit his own throat.

"Yes ma'am. Won't happen again." Emerald looked more like a kicked puppy now with how apologetic she looked.

"And you." She turned to Roman as he nervously laughed to her. "_Why_ wasn't this job done sooner?"

"Umm… Eh?" he gestured to his left. "Eh?" he pointed at all the crates to his right. "EH?!" he raised his arms to gesture to large pile of crates behind him. "_Sorry,_ if I've been busy stealing every speck of Dust in the kingdom!"

"You're an inspiration to every punk with a gun and a ski mask," Mercury praised him with mild sarcasm. He could tell Emerald got a kick out of that one, even if she didn't show it on the surface.

"Look around you, kid. I've got this town running scared." The orange haired criminal waved his cane at Mercury again before swinging it around to emphasize his points. "Police camping on every corner, Dust prices are through the roof, and we are sitting pretty in an abandoned warehouse with more Dust crystals, vials, and rounds than we know what to do with!" He turned back to Cinder with his cane held behind him. "Speakin' of which, if you three would inform me of your big master plan, it might make my next string of robberies run a little more smoothly." He finished his little rant with an angered tone.

"Oh Roman." Cinder rested a hand on his cheek as if she were trying to seduce him. "You'll know what you need, when you need to know it." Mercury couldn't see it, but he had a feeling she was using her stolen Maiden powers to make her eye glow like fire. The man forced himself to look away from her with a scowl. "Besides we're done with Dust." She turned away from him and started walking away with her usual sway of the hips.

"Okay," he said uncertainly. "What now?"

She stopped to look at him. "We're moving." She resumed walking away from them. "Have the White Fang clear out this warehouse. I'll send you details and coordinates tonight."

"Coordinates?" he asked.

"We're proceeding to phase two," she told him with a small smirk before resuming her exit, the bangle on her ankle chiming softly. Emerald and Mercury followed their boss, with Emerald hanging back for the chance to taunt Roman that she could pickpocket him.

As Mercury walked, he pulled a small, rusted locket with the chain long gone out of his pocket. Clicking it open, he saw a purple haired boy with grease stains all over his face and the violet shirt he was wearing. Next to him, a younger Mercury was showing off a set of rough-looking mechanical legs as he still got used to them. The younger boy looked around ten, while Mercury was eleven.

"Is that him?" came his partner's voice from his shoulder.

He snapped the locket shut and crammed it into one of the few Emerald-proof pockets in existence. "Yeah."

"Lives up to his name, doesn't he?" she asked him in an attempt to learn more.

"Don't talk about him to me. He's not important to the plan." Mercury walked off at a brisk pace as Emerald stared at his back.

**Once more, I'm sorry about the delay, and I will get around to rewriting the scene with Vio and Winter so it more properly fits with her personality. Until next time!**


End file.
